Speaking of the incident long years afterward, he said he did not think of it at the time as any sort of religious service, but that his emotions really made it as genuine a one as the recital of a liturgy in any pettier and less divine cathedral.

From Germany he took ship to England. The following extract from a letter home will give a glimpse of his experience in London, where it was written:

"I have been here about three weeks, and it gives me great pleasure to say that, from the abundant proofs I have had of English hospitality, it amply deserves that world-wide reputation which has rendered the phrase proverbial. Among men of letters, among the intelligent and worthy of the middling class of society, and among those of my own profession, I have found nothing but the warmest cordiality and kindness. So grateful, indeed, has been the welcome I have received, and so agreeably has my time passed, that it is with exceeding regret I am about to tear myself away. But, being desirous of seeing the north of Europe before I return to my native land, I must take advantage of the present season to travel into Russia, as I fear that the 'eager and nipping air' of the north at a later period would bite too shrewdly for me. To-night I set out with my friend Wikoff for Hamburg, and thence to St. Petersburg and Moscow.

"The present not being the season for theatricals in London, I have had but scanty opportunities of judging of the merits of the performers. I have seen Liston and Farren, however, both distinguished for their talents, and both deservedly admired. Yet I have seen nothing to alter the opinion which you know I have long entertained, that Henry Placide is the best actor on the stage in his own diversified range.

"I am very often solicited to perform during my sojourn abroad, but to all such requests my answer is invariably in the negative. I tell my friends here, as I told those at home before leaving, that my object in visiting Europe was not professional. Thanks to my countrymen! they have obviated the necessity of my going on such a tour.

"James Sheridan Knowles has come back, and I was at 'Old Drury' when he reappeared. His reception was very warm and hearty, and after the play (The Wife) he was called out, when he addressed the audience in a few words expressive of his thanks for their cordial greeting, and took occasion to advert, in very glowing terms, evidently prompted by sincere feeling, to the kindness he had experienced in America. He termed our country 'the bright land beyond the seas,' and our country-people 'his brothers and sisters.' His acknowledgments of gratitude were received by a full house with acclamations."

During the passage of the steamer William Jolliffe from London to Hamburg, Forrest evidently found no little amusement in studying the peculiarities of his fellow-passengers. He writes thus, for example: "Almost always when travelling in a public conveyance, if you notice, you will observe some one who tries to attract attention by standing out in relievo from the rest. Actuated by such a low ambition was an overgrown, unwieldy, almost spherical lady, dubbed on the way-bill honorable, and said to be the wife of a member of Parliament. This dame passée strove to ape the manners of a girl of sixteen, and occasionally, in a fit of would-be-young-again, gave her huge frame a motion on the promenade-deck that looked for all the world like the wallowing of a great sea-turtle in shallow water. She was of Spanish descent, and seemed delighted to show off her mastery of this foreign tongue, to the astonishment of the wonder-wounded Dutchmen, who, attracted by her bright-red mantle trimmed with ermine, and amazed at her knowledge of the strange tongue, gazed upon her with a sort of stupid reverence."

At Hamburg he attended a performance of Schiller's "Don Carlos," in the great Stadt Theatre. "The building is very commodious, but badly lighted by a single lustre depending from the dome. The play began at half-past six and ended at eleven, and, as it seemed to me, was but indifferently well represented. During these four and a half hours the people paid the closest attention and showed no sign of uneasiness. How an American audience would have shuffled!"

In Hamburg Forrest had his first experience of a Russian bath. His own description of this is interesting, as the delight in baths of all kinds was a growing passion with him even to the very last.

"Having reduced myself to nudity, a signal was given from an adjoining apartment, like the theatrical noises which attend the splitting of the charmed rock in the 'Forty Thieves.' A door now was opened upon the side, a blanket thrown over my shoulders, and I was told in German to go in. I obeyed. This was a small room, where the thermometer rose to about one hundred. Here the blanket was taken from my shoulders, and a door beyond opened, and in stalked a naked man, who motioned me to follow him. I did so. I passed the portal, and was immediately enveloped in steam and heat up at least to a hundred and ten of Fahrenheit. This chamber was of oval shape, and had on one side three or four shelves of wood, rising one above the other, on the first of which I was told to sit down. After striving to breathe here for five or six minutes, I was invited to sit upon the next, and after a certain time to the next, and so on until I reached the last, near the ceiling, where the heat must have been at least a hundred and twenty. By this time the perspiration became profuse, and poured off in torrents. The attendant now told me to descend to the third shelf; and then he commenced rubbing and whipping me with fragrant twigs. Then I was rubbed with soap, then told to stand in the centre of the floor, when in a moment I was deluged with a shower of cold water, which seemed to realize to me the refreshing thought of the poison-fevered monarch who wished his kingdom's rivers might flow through his burning bosom. My probation was now nearly over,—three-quarters of an hour at least in this steaming purgatory. I returned to the first apartment, where I was laid, almost exhausted, upon a couch, and covered with at least a dozen blankets. Again the perspiration broke out upon me, and a boy stood by to wipe the huge drops from my face and brow. One by one the blankets were removed, and I was rubbed dry with white towels. Then I dressed myself, paid for the bath, about a dollar, and something to the boys. As I walked into the street, the atmosphere never before seemed so pure. Every breath was like a delicious draught. At every step I felt returning strength, and in about a half an hour a bottle of hock and a dozen oysters made Richard wholly himself again."

At St. Petersburg Forrest found much to interest him, especially the tomb of Peter the Great, the numerous relics and specimens of his handiwork so carefully preserved, and the magnificent equestrian statue by Falconet, erected in his honor by Catherine. While crossing a bridge that spans the Neva, he one day observed a covered boat gliding beneath, manned by half a dozen soldiers. On inquiry, he learned that the boat contained some Polish noblemen who had been condemned to slavery and chains for the crime of loving liberty and their country too well. He describes a visit to the Palace of the Hermitage, where there was a fine collection of paintings, among them one ascribed to Jules Romain,—a very curious representation of the creation of woman. "Adam is asleep, like a melodramatic hero just fallen into a reverie, with his head resting on his right hand, quite in an attitude. The Deity, as usual, is given as an infirm old man dressed in azure, and is pointing to the side of our primeval parent, out of which mother Eve seems to slide like a thief from his hiding-place!"

Moscow he found still more attractive and imposing, with its long, romantic story, and the sublime tragedy of its conflagration in the presence of the terror-struck army of Napoleon. A single extract from his diary will suffice: "Went to the Kremlin. Passed the Holy Gate with my hat on, unconscious of the sacred precincts until a boor of a Russian grunted at my ear and with violent gestures motioned toward my head. It then struck me this must be the Holy Gate, through which none dare pass without being uncovered. But, as I did not like to be browbeaten into respect for their 'brazen images,' I passed on sans cérémonie and without molestation. I walked to the terrace which overlooks the gardens and the river, and looked down upon the magnificent city, with her gorgeous palaces, her innumerable cupolas and domes, dazzling amid the bright sunbeams with azure and gold. I stood by the ancient residence of the Tsars, the scene of so much history; and as I glanced over the immense assemblage of stately structures spread far and wide across the vast plain below, all beaming with as much freshness as if by the voice of magic they had just been called into existence, my eyes drank in more delight than they ever had before in looking upon a city, save only when in early life, after an absence of years from my native place, I revisited my home. The spectacle which Moscow presented was at the same time novel and sublime. Its varied architecture was at once Oriental, Gothic, and Classic, the delicate towering minarets of the East and the beauteous majesty of the Grecian blending with the

"At night, it being the anniversary of the coronation of the Emperor, the gardens about the Kremlin were magnificently illuminated, and crowded, perhaps, with two hundred thousand people. The walls and turrets of the Kremlin were filled with lamps wrought into the most grotesque shapes and festooned with innumerable lights. So were the trees, and in the dark and luxuriant foliage of the gardens they looked

From Moscow Forrest journeyed to Odessa, and thence through the Crimea to Constantinople. Passing Balaklava and Inkerman and Sevastopol, with what emotions he would have gazed about him could he but have foreseen the terrific battles that were in twenty years' time to rage there between the stubborn Slavonic power on one side and the leagued array of France, England, and Turkey on the other! No such premonition visiting his mind, he plodded on through the weary wastes till he reached Aloupka, where the Count Woronzoff, General Nerisken, and the Prince Gallitzin were resident proprietors of estates and lived in sumptuous style. The Gallitzin family were intimate acquaintances of that remarkable Russian lady, Madame Swetchine, whose conversion from the Greek Church to the Roman, whose rare character and genius, great friendships and brilliant salon in Paris, have secured for her name such high and permanent celebrity.

Taking a horse and a guide, Forrest started out from Aloupka to explore one of the neighboring Tartar villages.

"The houses are small, and generally built," he writes, "of stone, with flat roofs made of logs covered with dirt and clay, smoothed so as to form a comfortable floor to dry tobacco or grain upon. I asked permission to enter one of the huts, which was immediately granted. I found the clay floor scrupulously clean, the fire-place nicely swept, and some woollen cloths spread upon raised surfaces on the sides of the room, which seemed to serve as beds. The woman had a silver belt about her, which, when I admired it, she took off and handed to me. I put it around my waist. At this the children laughed. I gave them some money, and mounted my horse and rode to the village church,—or mosque, as they are Mohammedans. It was an old building of wood and stone, with a ruinous wooden tower by its side, from which they cry to prayers. I entered it. No one was there. There was a small wooden gallery at one end, to which they ascend by a ladder. It was a shabby and dismal place, and I hurried out of it back to the hotel."

On the following day, with his friend Wikoff, Forrest dined with the Count Woronzoff. "At five o'clock a cannon is fired as a signal to dress for dinner. In a half an hour a second gun is fired, and the guests are seated. Soon after the first gun we started for the castle. I saw there for the first time the Countess Sabanska. I paid my respects to her and retired to another part of the room, as she was talking with several gentlemen. She was very animated in her conversation, with particularly vivid gesticulation and expression of face. The Count's Tartar interpreter was playing billiards with one of the attendants. In a few minutes the Count and Countess entered, followed by a train of ladies and gentlemen. He introduced me to his lady, also to Madame Nerisken and the Princess Gallitzin and her daughter. I led Madame Nerisken to the table, and sat between her and the Countess Woronzoff, whom I found to be a most agreeable and interesting woman. Count Woronzoff sat opposite, with the Princess Gallitzin on one side and the Countess Sabanska on the other. The conversation, conducted in French, was anything but intellectual, as the growth of the prince's vines seemed the all-absorbing topic. The Countess Sabanska had now changed her whole manner from the extreme vivacity and gayety she first evinced, and had become silent and melancholy. Her thoughts seemed to be far away. How I should have liked to read the depths of her soul and know what was moving there! After dinner some of the ladies smoked cigarettes, and others played cards."

Constantinople opened to Forrest a fascinating glimpse of the civilization of the East, with its ancient races of men, its strange architecture and religious rites, its poetic costumes, its impressive manners, and that glamour of mystery over all which makes Oriental life seem to the Western traveller such a contrast to everything he has been wonted to at home. He made the most of his time here in visiting the historic monuments and trying to penetrate the open secrets of Moslem habits and Turkish character; and he brought away with him, on his departure for Greece, a crowd of mental pictures which never lost their clearness or their interest. For the history of the city of Constantine has been most rich in romance; and the scene unveiled to the voyager who approaches it by daylight or by moonlight is a vision of enchantment,—a wilderness of mosques, domes, cupolas, solemn cypresses, and spouting fountains. On a beautiful day, when not a cloud was in the sky nor a ripple on the Bosphorus, Forrest was surveying the city and its environs from a boat in the midst of the bay, when he saw, slowly approaching, a sumptuous barge, with awnings of silk and gold, a banner with the crescent and inscriptions in Arabic floating above, and a group of turbaned guards, with scimitars in their hands, half surrounding a man reclined on a purple divan. "Who is that?" asked Forrest of the guide. "That is the Padishah," was the reply. Forrest, ignorant of this title of "the Shah of Shahs" for the Sultan of Turkey, understood the guide to say, Paddy Shaw! and, supposing it to be some rich Irishman who was cutting such a figure in the Golden Horn, was so struck by the absurdity that he laughed aloud. The measured strokes of the rowers, regular as a piece of solemn music, meanwhile had brought the imperial freight nearly alongside. The guards looked at the laughing tragedian as if they would have liked to chop his head off, or bowstring him and sink him in a sack. The Sultan looked slowly at the audacious American, without the slightest change of expression in his sad, dark, impassive face,—and the two striking figures, so unlike, were soon out of sight of each other forever!

Passing over the notes of his tour in Greece, as covering matters now hackneyed from the descriptions given by hundreds of more recent travellers and published in every kind of literary form, a single extract from a letter to his mother is perhaps worthy of citation:

"From Constantinople I went to Smyrna, and thence into Greece. Here I am now, at last, in the city of Athens, the glorious home not only of the Drama, but also of so much else that has passed into the life of mankind. Alas, how changed! With all the power of imagination which I can conjure up, I am hardly able to convince myself that this was the once proud city of Pericles, Plato, Æschylus, Demosthenes, and the other men whose names have sounded so grand in the mouths of posterity. Looking on the tumbled temples and desolate walls, I have exclaimed with Byron,—

A personal adventure, also, that befell him at Athens, must not be omitted. One beautiful afternoon, he had been inspecting the Parthenon and what remained of its sculptured ornaments. Near where he stood, a heap of skulls lay on the ground, skulls of some of the victims of the last revolution, who had fallen in a battle of the Greeks and Turks. His attention was drawn to the phrenological developments of several of these skulls. Chancing at that moment to look down towards the temple of Theseus, he saw, only a short distance from him, a man glide from behind a column and walk away. The man was clad in the costume of an Albanian, one of the most picturesque costumes in the world, and looked as if he had freshly stepped out of a painting,—so beautiful was the combination of symmetry in his form, grace in his motion, and beauty in his dress. Perfectly fascinated, Forrest hastened forward and addressed the stranger in English, in French, in Spanish; but vain was every attempt to make himself understood. Just then Hill, the American missionary for many years at Athens, came along. Forrest accosted him with the inquiry, "Do you know who that man is yonder?" and, as much to his amazement as to his delight, received the answer, "Why, do you not know him? That is the son of Marco Bozzaris!" The lines of his friend Halleck,—

these lines, and his own parting scene with their author in New York harbor, flashed into his mind, and he felt as if this incident alone were enough to repay him for his whole journey.

On his return once more to Paris, in a letter to his friend Leggett he sketches in epitome the ground he has been over. An extract follows:

"Since I saw you, I have indeed been in strange lands, and seen strange sights. I have traversed the Baltic and the wide dominions of the ambitious Autocrat,—crossed the Euxine and dipped into Asia and European Turkey,—'kept due onwards to the Propontic and Hellespont,'—wandered amid the faultless fragments of the 'bright clime of battle and of song,'—sailed by the Ionian Isles,—visited the chief towns of the Germanic Confederation,—and here I am at last, safe and sound, in the ever-gay capital of France. I thank Heaven my travelling in the 'far East' is at an end. One is badly accommodated there in railroads and steamers. However, take it for all in all, I have every reason to be satisfied with the voyage, for there is no kind of information but must be purchased with some painstaking, and one day I shall fully enjoy all this in calm retrospection from the bosom of the unpruned woods of my own country. Yes, the sight of the city of Moscow alone would amply repay one for all risks and fatigues at sea. Never shall I forget my sensations when, from the great tower of the Kremlin, one bright, sunny day, I looked down upon that beautiful city. The numberless domes, beaming with azure and with gold, the checkered roofs, the terraces, the garden slopes, the mingling of all the styles and systems of architectural construction, now massive and heavy, now brilliant and light, and everywhere fresh and original, enchanted me. I am free to confess Russia astonished me. I have sailed down the mighty Mississippi,—I have been in the dark and silent bosom of our own forest homes,—I have been under the eye of Mont Blanc and Olympus,—I grew familiar with Rome and with London,—without experiencing the same degree of wonder which fastened upon me in Russia. I thought there to have encountered with hordes of semi-barbarians, yet I found a people raised, as it were, at once from a state of nature to our level of civilization. Nor have they apparently, in their rapid onward course, neglected the means to render their progress sure. And then, what an army,—a million of men! and the best forms of men,—the best disciplined, and able to endure the 'labored battle sweat' by their constant activity, the rigor of their climate, and their ignorance of all pleasures which serve to effeminate. The navy, too, though in an imperfect state compared with the army (in sailors, not ships), will doubtless soon hold a distinguished rank. Only think of such a power, increasing every day,—stretching out wider and wider, and all confessing one duty,—obedience to the will of the absolute sovereign!"

About this time two significant entries are found in his diary. The first one is: "Received intelligence of the death of Edwin Forrest Goodman, the infant son of a friend.

The second is this: "And so Jane Placide is dead. The theatrical people of New Orleans then have lost much. She imparted a grace and a force and dignity to her rôle which few actresses have been able so admirably to combine. She excelled in a profession in the arduous sphere of which even to succeed requires uncommon gifts, both mental and physical. Her disposition was as lovely as her person. Heaven lodge and rest her fair soul!"

The reader will recollect Miss Placide as the friend about whom young Forrest quarrelled with Caldwell and withdrew from his service. How strangely the millions of influences or spirits that weave our fate fly to and fro with the threads of the weft and woof! While he was writing the above words in the capital of France, her remains were sleeping in a quiet cemetery of the far South, on the other side of the world, with the inscription on the slab above her,—

He passed over to England again, to visit a few spots sacred in his imagination which he had not seen in his former journey there. Chief among these were the house and grave of Shakspeare, at Stratford-upon-Avon. With the eagerness and devotion arising from the lifelong enthusiasm of all his professional studies and experience, reinforced by the feeling of the accumulated homage paid at that shrine by mankind at large, he wandered and mused in the places once so familiar with the living presence of the poet, and still seeming to be suffused with his invisible presence. In the day he had made a careful exploration of the church where the unapproachable dramatist lies sepulchred. Late in the evening, when the moon was riding half-way up the heaven, he clambered over the fence, and, while the gentle current of Avon was lapping the sedges on its shore almost at his feet, gazed in at the window and saw the moonbeams silvering the bust of the dead master on the wall, and the carved letters of the quaint and dread inscription on his tomb,—

What a contrast the picture of him in this night-scene at the church-window would have made for those familiar with his appearance on the stage in the wrath of Coriolanus, the remorse of Macbeth, the sneer of Richard, the horror of Othello, or the tempest of Lear!

It now lacked but a few days of being two years since Forrest left America, and he began to feel powerfully drawn homewards. It had been a period of unalloyed satisfaction, and he had much improved in many ways, from his intercourse with different forms and classes of society, from his contemplation of natural scenery in many lands, from his study of the masterpieces of art, from his criticism of the performances of the distinguished actors and actresses whom he saw, and from his reading of many valuable books, including, among lighter volumes, such works as those of Locke and Spinoza. In this long tour and deliberate tarry abroad, wisely chosen in his early manhood, before his nature had hardened in routine, with plenty of money, leisure, health, freedom, and aspiration, he had drunk his fill of joy. His brain and spine and ganglia saturated with an amorous drench of elemental force, drunk with every kind of potency, he swayed on his centres in revelling fulness of life. He had been in these two exempted years like Hercules in Olympus, with abundance of ambrosia and nectar and Hebe on his knee. But now his heart cried out for home, and the sense of duty urged him to gird up his loins for work again. Something of his feeling may be guessed from the fact that he had copied into his journal these lines of Byron:

He took passage in the Poland, and, with no notable adventure on the voyage, arrived at New York on the 5th of August, 1836, to be received with cheers into the open arms of a crowd of his friends as he stepped ashore, prouder than ever of his birthright of American citizenship.