action in scenes will be found much more difficult
than in single speeches. And here it will be necessary to give some
additional instructions respecting action, as a speaker who delivers
himself singly to an auditory, and one who addresses another speaker in
view of an auditory, are under very different predicaments. The first
has only one object to address, the last has two:--For if a speaker on
the stage were to address the person he speaks to, without any regard to
the point of view in which he stands with respect to the audience, he
would be apt to turn his back on them, and to place himself in such
positions as would be highly ungraceful and disgusting. When a scene,
therefore, is represented, it is necessary that the two personages who
speak should form a sort of picture, and place themselves in a position
agreeable to the laws of perspective. In order to do this, it will be
necessary that each of them should stand obliquely, and chiefly make use
of one hand: that is, supposing the stage or platform where they stand,
to be a quadrangle, each speaker should respectively face that corner of
it next to the audience, and use that hand and rest upon that leg which
is next to the person he speaks to, and which is farthest from the
audience. This disposition is absolutely necessary to form any thing
like a picturesque grouping of objects, and without it, that is, if both
speakers use the right hand, and stand exactly fronting each other, the
impropriety will be palpable, and the spectacle disgusting.

It need scarcely be noted, that the speaker in a scene uses that hand
which is next the audience, he ought likewise to poize his body upon the
same leg: this is almost an invariable rule in action: the hand should
act on that side only on which the body bears. Good actors and speakers
may sometimes depart from this rule, but such only will know when to do
it with propriety.

Occasion may be taken in the course of the scene to change sides. One
speaker at the end of an impassioned speech, may cross over to the place
of the other, while the latter at the same moment crosses over to the
place of the former. This, however, must be done with great care, and so
as to keep the back from being turned to the audience: But if this
transition be performed adroitly, it will have a very good effect in
varying the position of the speakers, and giving each an opportunity of
using his right hand--the most favourable to grace and expressio