ched. The wardrobe of Munden, the comedian, contained a black
Genoa velvet coat, which had once belonged to King George II.; while
another coat boasted also a distinguished pedigree, and could be
traced to Francis, Duke of Bedford, who had worn it on the occasion of
the Prince of Wales's marriage. It had originally cost L1000! But then
it had been fringed with precious stones, of which the sockets only
remained when it fell into the hands of the dealers in second-hand
garments; but, even in its dilapidated state, Munden had given L40 for
it. Usually, however, fine clothes, such as "birthday suits," became
the property rather of the tragedians than the comedians. Cibber
describes the division on the subject of dress, existing in the
"Commonwealth" company, of which he formed a member, in 1696. "The
tragedians," he writes, "seemed to think their rank as much above the
comedians as the characters they severally acted; when the first were
in their finery, the latter were impatient at the expense, and looked
upon it as rather laid out upon the real than the fictitious person of
the actor. Nay, I have known in our company this ridiculous sort of
regret carried so far that the tragedian has thought himself injured
when the comedian pretended to wear a fine coat." Powel, the
tragedian, surveying the dress worn by Cibber as Lord Foppington,
fairly lost his temper, and complained, in rude terms, that he had not
so good a suit in which to play Caesar Borgia. Then, again, when
Betterton proposed to "mount" a tragedy, the comic actors were sure to
murmur at the cost of it. Dogget especially regarded with impatience
"the costly trains and plumes of tragedy, in which, knowing himself to
be useless, he thought they were all a vain extravagance." Tragedy,
however, was certainly an expensive entertainment at this time.
Dryden's "All for Love" had been revived at a cost of nearly L600 for
dresses--"a sum unheard of for many years before on a like occasion."
It was, by-the-way, the production of this tragedy, in preference to
his "adaptation" of Shakespeare's "Coriolanus," that so bitterly
angered Dennis, the critic, and brought about his fierce enmity to
Cibber.

To the hero of tragedy a feathered headdress was indispensable; the
heroine demanded a long train borne by one or two pages. Pope writes:

Loud as the wolves on Orca's stormy steep
Howl to the roarings of the northern deep,
Such is the shout, the long-applauded note