With the audience she was never for a moment out of favour after she had made her merit apparent. They acknowledged no greater actress,--with the single exception of Mrs. Betterton in the character of Lady Macbeth. Nevertheless, on and behind the stage Mrs. Barry's supremacy was sometimes questioned and her commands disobeyed. When she was about to play Roxana to the Statira of Mrs. Boutell, in Nat. Lee's "Rival Queens, or the Death of Alexander the Great," she selected from the wardrobe a certain veil which was claimed by Mrs. Boutell as of right belonging to her. The property-man thought so too, and handed the veil to the last-named lady. His award was reasonable, for she was the original Statira, having played the part to the matchless Alexander of Hart, and to the glowing Roxana of the fascinating Marshall. I fear, however, that the lady was not moderate in her victory, and that by flaunting the trophy too frequently before the eyes of the rival queen, the daughter of Darius exasperated too fiercely her Persian rival in the heart of Alexander. The rage and dissension set down for them in the play were, at all events, not simulated. The quarrel went on increasing in intensity from the first, and culminated in the gardens of Semiramis. When Roxana seized on her detested enemy there, and the supreme struggle took place, Mrs. Barry, with the exclamation of "Die, sorceress, die! and all my wrongs die with thee!" sent her polished dagger right through the stiff armour of Mrs. Boutell's stays. The consequences were a scratch and a shriek, but there was no great harm done. An investigation followed, and some mention was made of a real jealousy existing in Mrs. Barry's breast in reference to an admirer of lower rank than Alexander, lured from her feet by the little, flute-voiced Boutell. The deed itself was, however, mildly construed, and Mrs. Barry was believed when she declared that she had been carried away by the illusion and excitement of the scene. We shall see the same scene repeated, with similar stage effects, by Mrs. Woffington and Mrs. Bellamy. If there were a lover to add bitterness to the quarrel engendered by the veil, Mrs. Barry might have well spared one of whom she possessed so many. Without being positively a transcendent beauty, her attractions were confessed by many an Antony from the country, who thought their world of acres well lost for the sake of a little sunshine from the eyes of this vanquishing, imperious, banquetting, heart and purse destroying Cleopatra. There were two classes of men who made epigrams, or caused others to make them against her, namely, the adorers on whom she ceased to smile, and those on whom she refused to smile at all. The coffee-house poetry which these perpetrated against her is the reverse of pleasant to read; but, under the protection of such a wit as Etherege, or such a fine gentleman as Rochester, Mrs. Barry cared little for her puny assailants.