From the boundless lakes and rivers, from our broad continuous climes, Over which the bell of Freedom sounds her everlasting chimes, Thou didst catch that breadth of manner; and to wreath the glorious whole, Sacred flames are ever leaping from thy democratic soul. Welcome then that look of grandeur, welcome then that stately mien, Always shedding native glory o’er the wondrous mimic scene, Always like a mighty mirror glassing Vice or Virtue’s star, Giving Time his very pressure, showing Nations as they are! After a long absence from Albany, Forrest fulfilled an engagement there in 1864. It carried his mind back to his early struggles in the same place, though few of the kind friends who had then cheered him now remained. There was no vacant spot, however, any more than there was any loss of fervor. On the last night the audience—so crowded that “they seemed actually piled on one another in the lobbies”—called him before the curtain and asked for a speech. He said,— “I am very glad, ladies and gentlemen, that an opportunity is thus afforded me to say a few words, to thank you for your generous welcome here, and also for the kind applause you have lavished on my performances. In Albany I seem to live a twofold existence,—I live one in the past, and I live one in the present,—and both alike are filled with the most agreeable memories. Here, within these very walls, even in my boyish days, I was cheered on to those inspiring toils ‘Which make man master men.’ Here, within these walls, while yet in my boyish days, one of the proudest honors of my professional life was achieved; for I here essayed the part of Iago to the Othello of the greatest actor that ‘ever lived in the tide of times,’—Edmund Kean. To me there is music in the very name,—Edmund Kean, a name blended indissolubly with the genius of Shakspeare; Edmund Kean, who did more by his acting to illustrate the Bard of all time than all the commentators from Johnson, Warburton, and Steevens down to the critics of the present day. It was said of Edmund Kean by a distinguished English poet, that ‘he read Shakspeare by flashes of lightning.’ It is true; but those flashes of lightning were the coruscations of his own divine mind, which was in affinity with the mind of Shakspeare. Now I must beg leave to express my heartfelt thanks for this demonstration of your favor, hoping at no distant day to meet you again.”