Mrs. Bellamy, according to her own account, had been wont to take great pains and to exercise much good taste in regard to the costume she assumed upon the stage.  She claimed to have discarded hooped skirts, while those unwieldy draperies were still greatly favoured by other actresses, and to have adopted a style of dress remarkable for an elegant simplicity then very new to the stage.  Still, the lady has freely admitted that she could be very gorgeous upon occasions; and concerning one of two grand tragedy dresses she had obtained from Paris, she has something of a history to narrate.  The play was to be the “Alexander” of Nat Lee; the rival actresses were to appear—­Mrs. Bellamy as Statira, and the famous Mrs. Woffington as Roxana.  The ladies did not love each other—­rival actresses oftentimes do not love each other—­and each possessed a temper.  Moreover, each was a beauty:  Mrs. Woffington, a grand brunette, dark browed, with flashing eyes and stately mien:  Mrs. Bellamy, a blonde, blue-eyed and golden-haired—­an accomplished actress, if an affected one.  Now, Mrs. Bellamy’s grand dress of deep yellow satin, with a robe of rich purple velvet, was found to have a most injurious effect upon the delicate straw-coloured skirts of Mrs. Woffington; they seemed to be reduced to a dirty white hue.  The ladies fairly quarrelled over their dresses.  At length, if we may adopt Mrs. Bellamy’s account of the proceeding, Mrs. Woffington’s rage was so kindled “that it nearly bordered on madness.  When, oh! dire to tell! she drove me off the carpet and gave me the coup de grace almost behind the scenes.  The audience, who, I believe, preferred hearing my last dying speech to seeing her beauty and fine attitude, could not avoid perceiving her violence, and testified their displeasure at it.”  Possibly the scene excited mirth in an equal degree.  Foote forthwith prepared a burlesque, “The Green-room Squabble; or, A Battle Royal between the Queen of Babylon and the Daughter of Darius.”  The same tragedy, it may be noted, had at an earlier date been productive of discord in the theatre.  Mrs. Barry, as Roxana, had indeed stabbed her Statira, Mrs. Boutell, with such violence that the dagger, although the point was blunted, “made its way through Mrs. Boutell’s stays and entered about a quarter of an inch into the flesh.”  It is not clear, however, that this contest, like the other, is to be attributed to antagonism in the matter of dress.

The characteristics of the “tiring-room” have always presented themselves in a ludicrous light to the ordinary observer.  There is always a jumble of incongruous articles, and a striking contrast between the ambitious pretensions of things and their real meanness—­between the facts and fictions of theatrical life.  Mr. Collier quotes from Brome’s comedy, “The Antipodes,” 1640, a curious account of the contents of the “tiring-house” of that time.  Byeplay, an actor, one of the characters, is speaking of the hero Peregrine, who is in some sort a reflection of Don Quixote: