“Mr. Forrest has always been remarkable for his iron repose, his perfect precision of method, his immense physical force, his capacity for leonine banter, his fiery ferocity, and his occasional felicity of elocution in passages of monotone and colloquy. These features are still conspicuous in his acting. The spell of physical magnetism that he has wielded so long is yet unbroken. The certainty of purpose that has always distinguished him remains the same. Hence his popular success is as great as ever. Strength and definiteness are always comprehensible, and generally admirable. Mr. Forrest is the union of both. We may liken him to a rugged old castle, conspicuous in a landscape. The architecture may not be admired, but the building is distinctly seen and known. You may not like the actor, but you cannot help seeing that he is the graphic representative of a certain set of ideas in art. That is something. Nay, in a world of loose and wavering motives and conduct, it is much. We have little sympathy with the school of acting which Mr. Forrest heads; but we know that it also serves in the great educational system of the age, and we are glad to see it so thoroughly represented. But, while Mr. Forrest illustrates the value of earnestness and of assured skill, he also illustrates the law of classification in art as well as in humanity. All mankind—artists among the rest—are distinctly classified. We are what we are. Each man develops along his own grade, but never rises into a higher one. Hence the world’s continual wrangling over representative men,—wrangling between persons of different classes, who can never possibly become of one mind. Mr. Forrest has from the first been the theme of this sort of controversy. He represents the physical element in art. He is a landmark on the border-line between physical and spiritual power. Natures kindred with his own admire him, follow him, reverence him as the finest type of artist. That is natural and inevitable. But there is another sort of nature,—with which neither Mr. Forrest nor his admirers can possibly sympathize,—that demands an artist of a very different stamp; that asks continually for some great spiritual hero and leader; that has crowned and uncrowned many false monarchs; and that must for ever and ever hopelessly pursue its ideal. This nature feels what Shelley felt when he wrote of ‘the desire of the moth for the star, of the night for the morrow.’ To persons of this order—and they are sufficiently numerous to constitute a large minority— Mr. Forrest’s peculiar interpretations of character and passion are unsatisfactory. They see and admire his certainty of touch, his profound assurance, his solid symmetry. But they feel that something is wanting to complete the artist. But enough of this. It is pleasanter now to dwell upon whatever is most agreeable in the veteran’s professional attitude. Mr. Forrest is one of the few thorough and indefatigable students remaining to the stage.