Transcriber's Note:
The tables of contents and steel plates reflect future volumes.
See end of text for further notes.
EDWIN FORREST.
ÆT 45
LIFE
OF
EDWIN FORREST,
THE AMERICAN TRAGEDIAN.
BY
WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER.
VOLUME I.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1877.
Copyright, 1877, by J. B. Lippincott & Co.
TO
JAMES OAKES,
THE
TRUE PYTHIAS
IN THE REAL LIFE OF THIS
DAMON,
THE FOLLOWING BIOGRAPHY
IS INSCRIBED.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The Author of the following work apologizes for the delayof its publication on the ground of long-continued ill healthwhich unfitted him for mental labor. He has tried to makeamends by sparing no pains in his effort to do justice to thesubjects treated. The plan of the ensuing biography is that ofa philosophical history, which adds to the simple narrative ofevents a discussion of the causes and teachings of the events.The writer has interspersed the mere recital of personal factsand incidents with studies of the principal topics of a moregeneral nature intimately associated with these, and has soughtto enforce the lessons they yield. His aim in this has been toadd to the descriptive interest of the work more important moralvalues. The thoughtful reader, who seeks improvement and isinterested in the fortunes of his kind, will, it is believed, findthese episodes attractive; and the frivolous reader, who seeksamusement alone, need not complain of disquisitions which hecan easily skip.
The author foresees that some opinions advanced will be metwith prejudice and disfavor, perhaps with angry abuse. But ashe has written in disinterested loyalty to truth and humanity,attacking no entrenched notion and advocating no revolutionaryone except from a sense of duty and in the hope of doing aservice, he will calmly accept whatever odium the firm statementof his honest convictions may bring. Society in thepresent phase of civilization is full of tyrannical errors andwrongs against which most persons are afraid even so muchas to whisper. To remove these obstructive evils, and exert[Pg 6]an influence to hasten the period of universal justice and goodwill for which the world sighs, men of a free and enlightenedspirit must fearlessly express their thoughts and breathe