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PREFATORY NOTE
The Author of the following work apologizes
for the delay of its publication on the ground of long-continued ill
health which unfitted him for mental labor. He has tried to make amends
by sparing no pains in his effort to do justice to the subjects treated.
The plan of the ensuing biography is that of a philosophical history,
which adds to the simple narrative of events a discussion of the causes
and teachings of the events. The writer has interspersed the mere
recital of personal facts and incidents with studies of the principal
topics of a more general nature intimately associated with these, and
has sought to enforce the lessons they yield. His aim in this has been
to add to the descriptive interest of the work more important moral
values. The thoughtful reader, who seeks improvement and is interested
in the fortunes of his kind, will, it is believed, find these episodes
attractive; and the frivolous reader, who seeks amusement alone, need
not complain of disquisitions which he can easily skip.
The author foresees that some opinions advanced will be met with
prejudice and disfavor, perhaps with angry abuse. But as he has written
in disinterested loyalty to truth and humanity, attacking no entrenched
notion and advocating no revolutionary one except from a sense of duty
and in the hope of doing a service, he will calmly accept whatever odium
the firm statement of his honest convictions may bring. Society in the
present phase of civilization is full of tyrannical errors and wrongs
against which most persons are afraid even so much as to whisper. To
remove these obstructive evils, and exert an influence to hasten the
period of universal justice and good will for which the world sighs, men
of a free and enlightened spirit must fearlessly express their thoughts
and breathe their philanthropic desires into the atmosphere. If their
motives are pure and their views correct, however much a prejudiced
public opinion may be offended and stung to assail them, after a little
while their valor will be applauded and their names shine out
untarnished by the passing breath of obloquy. It is, Goethe said, with
true opinions courageously uttered as with pawns first advanced on the
chess-board: they may be beaten, but they have inaugurated a game which
must be won. Edwin
Forrest made his first appearance on the stage of this world the ninth
day of March, 1806, in the city of Philadelphia. His father, William
Forrest, was a Scotchman, who had migrated to America and established
himself in business as an importer of Scottish fabrics. He was of good
descent. His father, the grandparent of the subject of this biography,
is described as a large, powerfully-built man, residing, in a highly
respectable condition,at Cooniston, Mid-Lothian, Edinburgh County,
Scotland.
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