I have already observed how necessary it is that all the steps, in the theatrical dances, which have imitation for their object, should be intelligible at the first glance of the eye. This cannot be too much inculcated. The passions and manners of mankind, have all a different expression, which cannot be presented too plain, and too obvious. The adjustment of the motions to the character must be observed through every stile of dancing, the serious, the half-serious, the comic, and the grotesque. The various beauties of these different kinds of dances, all center in the propriety or truth of nature. Looks, movements, attitudes, gestures, should in the dancer, all have an appropriate meaning; so plainly expressed as to be instantaneously understood by the spectator, without giving him the trouble of unriddling them: otherwise, it is like talking to them in a foreign language for which an interpretor is needed. But to give a sentiment, a man must have it first: where a pathetic sentiment is well possessed of the mind, the expression of it is diffused over the whole body. The theatre shows to advantage a well proportioned dancer. A tall person appears the more majestic on it; but those of a middling stature are more generally fit for every character; and may make up in gracefulness what they want in size. The remarkably tall commonly want the graces to be seen in those of the more general standard. A young dancer who displays a dawn of genius, cannot be too much exhorted to deliver himself up to the power of nature; so that acquiring a particular manner of his own, he may himself proceed on original. If he would hope to arrive at any eminence in the art, he must break the shackles of a servile imitation, and preserve nothing but the principles and grounds of his art, which will be so far from fettering him, that they will assist his soaring upon the wings of his own genius. Where a dancer undertakes to represent a subject on the theatre, he must ground his plan of performance on the selecting all the most proper situations for furnishing the most strikingly pictures, prospects, and consequently, producing the greatest effect. This was doubtless the great secret of Pilades, the founder, at least in Rome, of the pantomime art. It was on this choice of situations, that the understanding whole pieces, both tragic and comic, executed in dances, entirely depends. And here, upon mentioning the pantomime art, be it allowed me to defend it against the objections made to it, by those who consider it only under a partial or vulgar point of view. If any one should pretend that the pantomime art is superior to the actor's power of representation in tragedy or comedy, or that such an entertainment of dumb show ought to exclude that of speaking characters; nothing could be more ridiculous or absurd than such a proposition.