Mr. Forrest has appeared this week in a character better
calculated than any other he has played to show his qualities to advantage; and his success has been proportionate. Metamora, or the Last of the Wampanoags, is a native American melodrama, dignified with the title of tragedy on the strength of five acts of declamatory fustian, without either action or situa- tion of a really dramatic nature. However, it serves as a vehicle for Mr. Forrest's representation of the Red Indian chief ; a character with which he may be supposed to have some acquaintance and sympathy. His per- formance is a remarkable exhibition of physical energy and determination of purpose in the performance of stage-business; but beyond the manifests - tion of brutal and bloodthirsty ferocity and animal instinct, we could disown no traces of character belonging either to the individual or the race. There was no indication of mental power or emotion, or of imaginative conception: the savage man was not elevated by moral dignity or grandeur of soul. He spoke like a braggart beating the air with big words and only seemed in earnest when butchery was to be done: then, indeed, he nerved his arm and whetted his fangs as if he snuffed blood. This may be a true picture of an Indian of the Wampanoag tribe, for aught we know to the contrary: if so, we can only say these Red men are very sanguinary brutes, with even less of a common humanity than we fancied they possessed.
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