The Sun.
London, England, 1854-02-07 00:00:00

THE HAYMARKET THEATRE.

" Bertram's right and Bertram's might
Shall meet on Ellangowan's height,"

she rises into an ancient sybil, and seems ready to soar
from the ground through the elevated character of her
mission. She is now no longer the grotesque hag or
the doating grandam, but a Pythian priestess, sublime
in her inspiration. And all this is done, not by the part
itself, but by the actress. Meg Merrilies can be played,
and has been played over and over again, as a part of
melodramatic "business," moving in the most ordinary
routine, and only striking from the oddity of the cos-
tume. Miss Cushman lifts it up from common melo- ,
drame into the highest rank of tragedy, and is rewarded
not only with the common round of applause, but with
the expressive murmur of admiration. There was some-
thing in the manner in which she was " called" last
night very different from those " calls" which seem to
be the result rather of a good-humoured custom than of
intelligent approval.

Several of the minor parts of the piece are exceed-
ingly well filled. Dominie Sampson, whom the author
of the acting play, Mr. Tarry, modified from Sir W.
Scott's orignal by a most unmerciful process of carica-
ture, but at the same time with a good practical eye to.
stage effect, is quaintly represented by Mr. Compton,
and the oddities, though one would think they were
all known by heart, were invariably followed by a
hearty laugh. Mr. Rogers, al ways a careful, con-
scientious actor, though sometimes unfavourably
placed, is an excellent Dandle Dinmont, and his
dance, in the course of which he flings coats and
waistcoat on the ground and perspires with hilarity
and exertion, is spirited and characteristic to the
highest degree. Mr. Howe, on the other hand, is not
well suited to the part of Dirk Hatterick. He is an ex-
cellent representative of bluff, honest gentlemen, who
chuck servant-girls under the chin and make love in
boisterous fashion ; but the Dutch smuggler is too de-
cided a brute for his handling. The musical portion of
the piece, comprising some of Sir H. R. Bishop's earliest
and best compositions, is very well done, reflecting great
credit on Mr. E. Fitzwilliam, under whose superintend-
ence the necessary drilling has taken place, and one is
astonished, for instance, to find how satisfactorily Mrs.
L. S. Buckingham, who is not a vocalist by profession,
sings the part of Julia Mannering. Mr. Galer, who
personates Harry Bertram, is by no means an ineffective
singer of ballads, but he is as yet in the very infancy of
histrionic art. Poor Meg Merrilies to take so much
trouble about an heir of Ellangowan who will not even
turn his head to look at her while she is dying about 6
feet distance !

Guy Mannering has so often been produced as a mere
makeshift piece, put up when nothing else was to be got,
that Mr. Buckstone is entitled to great praise for the
style in which he has brought it on the stage. Instead
of making the excellence of the actress an excuse for
the shabbiness of the decoration, he has paid Miss
Cushman the proper compliment of showing that a
piece to which she gives effect is worthy of being done
well. The scenery is picturesque throughout, and the
gipsy encampment, though similar subjects are common
enough on the stage, is treated with a completeness of
detail that distinguishes it from ordinary representations
of the kind.

COURT CIRCULAR.

WINDSOR, FE3. 6.

The Queen and Prince drove out in an open carriage
this afternoon. Major-General Buckley and Lieutenant-
Colonel the Hon. A. Gordon attended on horseback.

The Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal, and younger
members of the Royal family took their usual walking
and pony exercise.

The Earl of Aberdeen arrived yesterday, and left the
Castle this morning for London.
The Duchess of Sutherland also left to-day for London.

Mr. J. G. Middleton had the honour of submitting
for her Majesty's inspection the portrait he has re-
cently finished of his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of
the French. •

A deputation from the Wesleyan body, consisting of
the Rev. Dr. Bunting, the Rev. Dr. Beecham, the Rev.
Charles Prest, Mr. James Heald, Mr. J. P. Bunting,
and the Rev. John Scott, had an interview with Vie-
count Palmerston yesterday at the Home-office.
The Committee on Education of the Lords of her
Majesty's Most Hon. Privy Council lMd a meeting yes-
terday in the Privy Council-office. Present, the Lord
President, the Earl of Aberdeen, the Marquis of Lans-
downe, the Duke of Argyll, Lord John Russell, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Right Hon. Sidney
Herbert.

Lord Duncan had an interview with the Chancellor of
the Exchequer yesterday at his official residence in
Downing-street.

A deputation from Wandsworth, headed by Mr. Al-
cock, M.P., had an interview yesterday with Viscount
Palmerston at the Home•office. The deputation con-
sisted of the Rev. S. Gower ; Messrs. Charles Dagnall
and James Lyon (churchwardens) ; Mr. Joseph Lyon
(sidesman) ; Messrs. Samuel Cumbers, David Nicholson,
and Thomas Townsend ; and Mr. L. J. Upcher (vestry-
clerk).

The Duke and Duchess of Wellington, who have just
arrived at Rome from Tuscany, are expected to return
to this country in the ensuing month.
The Earl of Wilton has left Grosvenor-square for
Egerton Lodge, Melton Mowbray, where the noble
Earl and Countess will entertain company until the
close of the hunting season,
The Rev. Lord Wriothesley Russell arrived in town
yesterday from the Cloisters, Windsor, to deliver a
lecture for the Young Man's Working Association.
The Earl of Stamford and Warrington has left Hill-
street, for Envil Hall, Staffordshire.
The Duchess of Sutherland returned to Stafford
House yesterday, from a visit to her Majesty, at
Windsor Castle.
The Earl of Derby has, we hear, taken the spacious
mansion of the Earl of Dartmouth, in St. James's-
square, for a lengthened term, as being more capacious
than the mansion he now occupies.
The Earl and Countess of Gosford and family have
arrived in Grosvenor-street, from Gosford Hall.
COLONEL PERCEVAL. —We regret to learn that
Colonel Perceval, the much-respected Sergeant-at-Arms
of the House of Lords, was seized with sudden indispo-
sition, while engaged reading, at the Union Club, on
Wednesday last. The gallant Colonel's attack was of a
nature calculated to alarm his friends, but we are happy
to learn that its effect has already passed away.
THE RUSSIAN LEGATION.—We believe we are cor-
rect in stating that Baron Brunow will leave London
to-morrow morning for the Continent.

---
BUSINESS OF THE PORT OP LoNpoN.—ln the general
business of the port of London during the past week
there has not been much activity. The number of ves-
sels reported inward was 95, being 12 less than in the
previous week. Of grain there were reported 11,664
quarters, including 10,020 quarters of wheat ; of flour,
10,245 barrels and 1,090 sacks; of tea, 49,903 packages;
and of sugar, 1,190 hhds., 69 calks, 8,794 cases, and
11,385 bags. The number of ships entered outward was

102, being an increase of 19 over the previous week.
Of these 22 were in ballast, and 15, as above stated, for
the Australian colonies.

RATES OF ExarANGL—The closing prices from the
Paris Bourse yesterday exhibited an improvement of
about three-quarters per cent. From Vienna the ac-
counts indicate a renewed and severe panic, the rate of
exchange on London having experienced a further ad-
vance of more than one per cent.—namely, to 12.29,
while the funds had suffered a fresh decline, as if Aus-
trian financiers entertained some doubts of the sincerity
of the course the Government are now pursuing. The
exchanges at Hamburg and Amsterdam show a ten-
dency favourable for this country, and at the former
place money is abundant at 24 per cent. The St.
Petersburg letters are to the 28th of January, and state,
that the effect of the depreciation of the currency at
present in progress was again observable, the quotation
for bills on London being 384 d. The rate of discount
Was 7 to 8 per cent., and there was nothing doing in
stocks. From Odessa telegraphic information has been
received to the 31st of January, when freights and grain
showed firmness, and ships were being loaded over the
ice.

[Not having had an opportunity of being present last
evening at this theatre ourselves, we extract the follow-
ing from a contemporary, both in justice to the celebrated
actress, and the enterprising manager.—En. Sun.]
The Meg Merrilies of Miss Charlotte Cushman is a
great work of histrionic genius, and moreover a work on
which the mark of greatness is so palpably impressed
that it is no sooner seen than it is recognised by an
audience. The character is not introduced till the piece
of Guy Mannering is about half over, and it is remarkable
to observe how the spectators, who have been quietly
sitting out a tissue of amusing, but not very exciting,
melodrame, are suddenly electrified, when Meg Mer-
rilies darts upon the stage. The apparition of that hag-
gard, superhuman figure, fixed in an attitude that might
be studied by a painter, gives a new tone to the entire
piece. A presence of a higher order is manifest, but for a
few minutes it seems doubtful whether the strange being
is animate or inanimate—an actual woman or some fan-
tastic image produced in the wild lanscape by a freak of na-
ture, such as the imagination may trace in the rocks or
trees that are met in a midnight walk through some de-
solate region. When the figure becomes obviously ani-
mate, lives, moves, and is even impassioned in its ges-
tures, its grandeur is not lost, but we are surprised to
find that an apparition which seemed so merely terrible
can become an object of sympathy. The fondness with
which Meg Merrilies acknowledges Harry Bertram, the
ravenous affection with which she presses his hand and
devours him with her wild eyes is exquisitely pathetic
—the more so because something of the ferocious is
blended with that maternal emotion which the sight of a
favourite child is supposed to awaken in the bosom of
an old doating nurse. The utterance of the prophecy
brings with it another change. As Meg pronounces the
distich,