or offer Comfort, Milduefs and Affábility ought to fpread o'er your Countenance, as Severity fhould when you cenfuré or reprehend. When you fpeak to Inferiors, or to little People, and your own Quality is great, Authority and Gravity ought to be in your Face; as Submiffion, Humility, and Refpect or Veneration, when you addrefs to thofe above you.

The Management of the Eyes in an Orator at the Ban,bor in the Pulpit, feems fomething different from what they must be in a Player, tho, if we make the rest of the Actors on the Stage with him at the fame time his Auditors, the Rules for one will reach the other; for fo indeed they are, for all the Regard that is to be liad to the Audience is that they fee and hear diftinctly, what we act and what we fpeak; that they may judge juftly of our Pofitions, Geftures and Utterance, in regard to each other.

The Orator therefore muft always be cafting his Eyes on fome or other of his Auditors, and turning them gently from fide to fide with an Air of Regard, fometimes on one Perfon, and fometimes on another, and not fix them immoveably on one Part of your Auditors, which is extremely unaffecting and dull, much less moving, than when we look them decently in the Face, as in common Difcourfe. This will hold good in Playing, if apply'd according to my former Rule for indeed I have obferv'd fre; quently fome Players, who pafs for great ones,

have their Eyes lifted up to the Galleries, of Top of the House, when they are engag'd in a Difcoufe of fome Heat, as if indeed they were conning a Leffon, not acting a Part; and Theophraftus himself (as I find him quoted) condemn'd Tamarifcus, a Player of his Time, who when ever he spoke on the Stage, turn'd his Eyes from thofe, who were to hear him, and kept them fixt all the while on one fingle and infenfible Object. But Nature acts directly in a contrary manner, and yet fhe ought to be the Player's as well as Poet's Miftrefs. No Man is engag'd in Difpute, or any Argument of Moment, but his Eyes and all his Regard are fixt on the Perfon, he talks with; not but that there are times according to the Turn or Crifis of a Paffion, where the Eyes may with great Beauty be turn'd from the Object we address to feveral Ways, as in Appeals to Heaven, imploring Affiftance, to join in your Addreffes to any one, and the like.

When you are free from Paffion, and in any Discourse,which requires no great Motion, as our modern Tragedies too frequently fuffer their chief Parts to be, your Afpect fhould be pleafant, your Looks direct, neither fevere nor afide, unless you fall into a Paffion, which requires the contrary. For then Nature, if you obey its Summons, will alter your Looks and Gestures. Thus when a Man fpeaks in Anger his Imagination is inflam'd, and kindles a fort of Fire in his Eyes, which fparkles from them in

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fuch a manner, that a Stranger, who understood not a Word of the Language, or a deaf Man, that could not hear the loudeft Tone of his Voice, would not fail of perceiving his Fury and Indignation. And this Fire of their Eyes will easily ftrike those of their Audience, which are continually fixt on yours; and by a strange fympathetic Infection, it will fet them on Fire too with the very fame Paffion.

I would not be misunderstood, when I fay you must wholly place your Eyes on the Perfon or Perfons you are engag'd with on the Stage; I mean, that at the fame time both Parties keep fuch a Pofition in Regard of the Audience, that even thefe Beauties escape not their Observation, tho never fo juftly directed. As in a Piece of Hiftory-Painting, tho the Fi gures direct their Eyes never fo directly to each other, yet the Beholder, by the Advantage of their Pofition, has a full View of the Expreffion of the Soul in the Eyes of the Figures. Thus in the Pfyche and Cupid of Coypel; Her Eyes are directed to him as he defcends on tlie Wing, and his to her glowing with Love and Defire, and yet all this is feen in him by thofe, who view the Picture. Titian has drawn the fame Story, I mean the Loves of Cupid and Psyche; but as She lies on the Bed naked, we fee nothing but her Back-parts, tho Cupid advances his Knee to the Bed, with his Eyes fixt on her Face, which are turn'd from the Spectator. I know not what the Italian's Fancy was, to imagine that the F 2 Back

Back-parts of the Miftrefs of LOVE fhould be more agreeable, than her Face. But this en pafSant To return to the Subject.

The Looks, and juft Expression of all the other Paffions, has the fame Effect, as this I have mention'd of Anger. For if the Grief of an other touches you with a real Compaffion, Tears will flow from your Eyes, whether you will or not. And this Art of Weeping, as I have read, was study'd with great Application by the ancient Players; and they made fo extraordinary a Progrefs in it, and work'd the Counterfeit fo near a Reality, that their Faces used to be all over blurr'd with Tears when they came off the Stage.

They us'd feveral means of bringing this paflionate Tenderness to a Perfection; yet this they found the most effectual. They kept their own private Afflictions in their Mind, and bent it perpetually on real Objects, and not on the Fable, or fictitious Paffion of the Play, which they acted. The fame Author gives us two notable Examples of this: The firft is of one Polus, a famous Actor; he had refrain❜d the Stage for fome time, after the Death of a beloved Son, for the Grief for that Lofs had fo fenfibly affected him, and thrown him into fuch a. Melancholy, that he had no Thoughts of ever returning to his Theatrical Employment but being at last once more on the Stage, and oblig'd to act Electra carrying the fuppos'd Urn of her Brother Oreftes, he went to the Grave

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of his own beloved Child, and brings his Urn on, instead of the fuppos'd Urn of Oreftes; which fo mov'd him, and melted his Heart into fuch Compaffion and Tenderness, at the Sight of that real Object of Sorrow, that he broke out into fuch loud Exclamations, and fuch unfeigned Tears, as fill'd the whole House with Grief, Weeping, and Lamentations.

The other Example is of the famous and wealthy Player Efopus, who by his rare Art in this particular did a great Piece of Service to the Common-wealth of Rome, in applying his Art to the recalling of Cicero from Banifhment. For he understanding, that fuch a thing was in Agitation with the People, acted a Play of Accius, in which were fome admirable Verfes on the Exile of Telamon, and the horrible Calamities of Priam and his Family. In the fpeaking of these Verses, the real Sufferings of his Friend fo affected him, that he made the imaginary Sufferings of the Poetical Perfon fo moving, that he drew Floods of Tears from those, who were indifferent, and made his very Enemies blush with Tears in their Eyes at his Affliction. And this fo mollify'd the People towards Cicero, and gave them fuch a Difpofition towards his Recalling and Re-establishment in his former Dignities, that he was foon after brought home in Triumph; and, as my Author affures me, Cicero himfelf tells us, with the utmoft Gratitude, what his, cordial Friend, this great Actor, had done for him on this Occafion.

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