Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1885 — REMINISCENCES OF PUBLIC MEN. [ARTICLE]

REMINISCENCES OF PUBLIC MEN.

BY BEN: PERLEY POORE.

The refusal of ihe Senate to ratify the treaty with San Domingo, on the 30th of June, 1870, after a long debate, was in accordance with general expectation, and Messrs. Sumner and Schurz, who had been its principal opponents, congratulated each other on their signal victory over the administration. The responsibility of its defeat was variously divided, but many placed it upon the shoulders of Mr. Fish, who, it was alleged, had been secretly in league with Mr. Sumner in opposition to the treaty, and doing whatever he dared to kill it. At all events, though the thing was badly managed throughout, the President need not have looked beyond Mr. Fish to have found the cause of failure. Edwin Forest played an engagement at Washington in January, 1871, and large audiences went to see him, partly out of curiosity and partly to compare him with younger tragedians. Although well advanced in the autumn of life,.he appeared somewhat as he had a quarter of a century before. He was a heavy, imposing man, of large stature, a good head, deeply engraved features, a carriage of dignity, and that great voice, like the musical roll of a bass drum, which in its softer tones was exquisite, and in its highest compass was like a lion’s roar. He was older, and he«showed it in his legs, with their lumpy and set muscles, destitute of the roundness of youth, in the heavy eves, the smile which he appeared to lift to his face with as much labor as the drawing of cool water from a deep well, the easy adaptability with which he assumed aged parts and his utter failure to simulate youth. His “Hamlet” was a noble recitation, but the reader was not that young Danish prince, . ~ . - . ; ....

The expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, His “Richelieu” was vigorous and effective, but none familiar with the “Richelieu” of the portraits—the lean, wasted, hollow-eyed man, whose will only is unshrivelled and undecayed—eould recognize their ideal in this large actor’s burly figure. He excelled at his time of life in “Othello” and “Lear,” and in “Virginius.” His “Othello” was a remarkable impersonation, as fine and forceful as he ever gave it in his best days. In the camp scenes he was particularly noble in air and attitude, and his management of the third act, where his jealousy was aroused by “lago,” might have charmed Shakspeare him-* seif. As the destiny of the piece deepened, we had some powerful sketches of passion, and the large audiences—for he had the most respectable and thoughtful classes as his auditors —ex* pressed their sense of interest by their nearly perfect silence between the acts, agd their lengthening, straining faces. The defects of Mr. Forest were those incurable traits and mannerisms, partly inseparable from his 6’er-aimple physique and partly acquired in those years of his fame when the pit occupied the place of the present orchestra floor. Some of these were the working of his jaw to express rage; the particular malignity of his smile when there was no special occasion for anything lurid; the quaint sotto voce wsfy he had on the eve of action, of muttering his sentences at running speed, and the long, yelling interjective: “Ha-aw-a-a-aw-a,” with which, after copious rhetoric, he flung himself toward the flies, to express sorrow. He was truly sweet, and also very grand in the quieter places, where his huge voice, Btrength and countenance were let down to our more average humanity, and his roar became a grateful rumble, as if we had been all at once released from a tunnel, and were riding along in the open air.

General Eobert C. Schenck is one of the last of the Whig gentlemen who adorned the national metropolis. His military career in the war was not remarkably brilliant, but his wound secured a pension for him, and his diplomatic services at London were very creditable, although an attempt was made to connect him with the famous “Emma Mine.” Don Piatt always insisted that as a humorist Schenck should be ranked next to Gorwin, and, as a proof of the General’s wit, told a story about him at a dinner of divines. One of the theologians had just returned from a tour through Arabia, Petra and the Holy Land. He was full of travelled talk of a dreary, prosy sort, and at last turned on the cavernous character of the country. “Full of holes?” cried Schenck, “that is the reason, I suppose, that it is called the Holy Land.” “Ah! no, my dear sir,” responded solemnly the old clergyman; “it is so designated because our Savior was born and suffered there.” Schenck said: “Ah!" and looked as solemn as a gate post. On another occasion, shortly after his return from his diplomatic mission to South America, he was with some friends at a country house in Montgomery County,, Maryland. The host, a good, old, but somewhat ignorant man, asked one of the guests who Eobert C. Schenck was. “Why,” responded the questioned individual, “he is our Minister, just home from South America.” “Is he?" said the old gentleman. When they were'seated at the dinner-table, to the amazement of all, the good old gentleman said, solemnly: “Brother Schenck, will you ask a blessing?” Schenck responded, with more force than politeness, that he would not And all laughed when they learned that the host confounded a Minister Plenipotentiary with a minister of the gospel. General Schenck ha? for some years past resided at Washington, where he owns a handsome house facing on Thomas Circle, at the West End. He was for some years a confirmed invalid, and was afflicted with Bright’s disease of the kidneys, when his physician prescribed a skimmed milk diet, which completely cured him, and he has since enjoyed excellent health.