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Guy .Mannering, although a hybrid sort of affair, produced by the con- version of admirable romance into commonplace melodrama, has been brought out at the Haymarket in such excellent style, that it is one of the moat attractive pieces now before the London public. This is mainly owing to the Meg Merrilies of Miss Cushman ; for the part, while it allows the actress to display her intelligence and energy to the fullest extent, does not, like several other characters in her repertoire, require that feminine fascination which is not her forte. Meg Merrilies, as it is played now, with her prophetic grandeur, her picturesque uncouthness, her wild affection, is purely a creation of the American actress. She belonged of old to the ordinary class of hard stage-women, having a large sisterhood of bandits' wives and outlaws' widows, from whom she was not greatly distinguished. The genius by which Miss Cushman makes Meg the important personage of the piece, though very differently employed, may be compared to that by which Mademoiselle Rachel makes Camille the principal figure in the Hareem of Corneille.
The acting of the piece generally is respectable, though not perfect ; and we especially commend the company for speaking the dialogue through- out in plain London English, without attempting the Northern dialect. When an artist who has made a dialect his study renders a particular character the exponent of his erudition, it is all very well; but when a whole company is required to learn Scottish or Northumbrian at a week's notice, a sort of language is produced which is saot a whit the more respectable from the fact, that, like the Homeric, it embraces many dialects. If any of our readers are old enough to recollect how the minor personages used to talk in Bab Ray and Guy Mannering twenty years ago, they will appreciate the Haymarket modesty. The scenery is new and effective, and the choruses give signs of careful training.
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