“It is said when Canova was finishing a choice marble that his friends were very anxious to see the work on exhibition, but the great artist restrained their impatience, and proposed to gratify their desire at the end of a given term. At the expiration of the time, his friends assembled eagerly, and, in tones of disappointment, exclaimed, ‘What have you been doing? You have been idle; you have done nothing to your piece.’ To which he replied, ‘On the contrary, my chisel has been exceedingly busy; I have subdued this muscle, I have brought out this feature, enlivened this expression, polished my marble.’ ‘Oh, but,’ said they, ‘these are mere trifles!’ ‘They may be,’ he said, ‘but trifles make up the sum of perfection.’ The Virginius of Mr. Forrest revived this anecdote of Canova, as well as remembrances of his early performances. The difference in the two cases, however, is that it is not the artist now, but his friends that see the perfection. Virginius has long been identified with Mr. Forrest’s fame; but, great as the lustre may be which his surpassing self-possession, noble and balanced bearing, rich, copious, and manly elocution, and deft, minute, and relative action have heretofore thrown upon this character, it has now been still more varied and beautified by the mellow tints that shadow and relieve the local splendor of salient features. It is indeed a masterpiece of acting and the ‘top of admiration.’ It is difficult to perceive any point of improvement that could give it more truth, in its lifelike resemblance, as a copy of fiction; and we are sure, after the ribaldry which of late years has degraded the boards, that there is not a single lover of the drama who saw this enactment who does not feel grateful to Mr. Edwin Forrest for his manly reassertion of the dignity of the stage.”