“Let us look at _Macbeth_, reaching, as _Richard_ does, at the Crown. Most of our modern actors vary the two but little in their manner, without following the line of difference made between them by the great dramatist. This difference was in the intellectual strength of their natures. _Richard_ is the tool of nobody. _Macbeth_ is but a plaster in the fingers of his wife. How exquisitely does Mr. Forrest mark out the two natures! You trace _Macbeth’s_ indecision of purpose in his very manner. His entrance in the first scene is characterized by it. The breaking off from his friends,—his return to himself when addressed by them,—his interjectional reveries,—his uncertainty of action, are all as they are given to us by Shakspeare, but scarcely such as we might have expected a man of Mr. Forrest’s physical temperament to embody. In _Richard_ the ambition is positive. He does not reason of the acts which he commits. Hence here the artist’s actions are positive. When he commits or orders one of these deeds which tend to secure his desires or objects, it is done at once. The positive decision of the man is translated by the actor, whether it be in the passionate command or the sneering jest, by the calculated impulse of the man.” Here is a part of an elaborate attack written by a relentless enemy and persecutor, quite remarkable for the untempered way in which it mixes truth and misrepresentation, justice and wrong: “Mr. Forrest is now an actor who depends almost entirely on his voice as a medium of expression. He throws all his force into his reading; elocution is intended to compensate for everything,—for facial expression, for suitable action, for muscular vigor, and often, indeed, for true feeling and appreciation. By his impressive reading he frequently gains applause when in reality he deserves condemnation. There are whole scenes in his _Lear_ unredeemed by one spark of feeling, the poverty of which he attempts to hide under a superficial gloss of elocutionary charlatanism. His fine voice aids him in this attempt; for that he has a noble voice, of great power,—whose tones are often commanding, and sometimes would be tender if they were inspired by any sincere feeling,—no one who has heard him can doubt. Take away this voice and Mr. Forrest is a nonentity, for _he cannot act_, and his face has no variety of expression. We know that, instead of using this fine element of success well, he has abused it; for his mannerisms of tone are perpetual, and disfigure every lengthy passage he reads. His voice has too great a burden to bear.