ns to the eye;
and every truly theatrical situation is nothing but a living
picture.

If a composer of dances should undertake to represent upon the
stage any great action or theatrical subject, he must begin by
making an extract from it, of all the most picturesque
situations. No other parts beside these can enter into his plan;
all the others are defective or useless, they can only embarras,
perplex, confound, and render it cold and insipid.

Whereas, if the situations succeed one another naturally, and in
great number; if their being well linked together conducts them
with rapidity, from the first situation to the last, which must
clearly and strikingly unravel the whole; the choice is
complete, and the theatrical effect will be sure.

It is that final effect, of which, in the execution, the
composer and performer must never lose sight. Successive
pictures must be exhibited, and animated with all the expression
that can result from the impassioned motions of the dance.

This was doubtless the great secret of the art of Pilades, who
so highly excelled in his ideas of theatrical expression: this
is, perhaps, too for all kinds of theatrical composition,
whether to be declaimed, or to be executed by dancing, a general
rule that is not to be slighted.

One instance of the regard shewn by Pilades to theatrical
propriety is preserved to us, and not unworthy of attention. He
had been publickly challenged by Hilas, once a pupil of his, to
represent the greatness of Agamemnon: Hilas came upon the stage
with buskins, which, in the nature of stilts, made him of an
artificial height; in consequence of which he greatly
over-topped the croud of actors who surrounded him. This passed
well enough, 'till Pilades appeared with an air, stern and
majestic. His serious steps, his arms a-cross, his motion
sometimes slow, sometimes animated, with pauses full of meaning,
his looks now fixed on the ground, now lifted to heaven, with
all the attitudes of profound pensiveness, painted strongly a
man taken up with great things, which he was meditating,
weighing, and comparing, with all the dignity of kingly
importance. The spectators, struck with the justness, with the
energy and real elevation of so expressive a portraiture,
unanimously adjudged the preference to Pilades, who, coolly
turning to Hilas, said to him, "_Young man, we had to represent
a king who commanded over twenty kings: you made him tall:
I showed him great._"

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