(Paul),** an eminent comic, or rather burlesque, French writer, was the son of Paul Scarron a councillor in parliament, and born at Paris in 1610. He was deformed, and of very irregular manners; yet his father designed him for the ecclesiastical state. He went to Italy when he was four and twenty; but returned just as licentious as he went, and so continued till by a terrible stroke he was deprived of all power to indulge vicious appetites. He was at Marseilles where he was a canon; but retiring from thence, at a carnival season, into a damp and fenny situation, a torpor suddenly seized him, and lie lost the use of his limbs. The physicians attempted in vain to restore them; and poor Scarron, at 27 years of age, had no movements left him but those of his hands and tongue. Melancholy and terrible as his condition was, his comical and burlesque humour never forsook him; he was continually talking and writing in this strain; and his house became the rendezvous of all the men of wit. Afterwards a fresh misfortune overtook him: his father, who had hitherto supplied his wants, incurred the displeasure of cardinal Richelieu, and was banished. Scarron, deprived of his resources, presented an humble request to Richelieu; which was so humorously drawn, that the minister could not forbear laughing. What the effect would have been, cannot be said, since both Richelieu and his father died soon after; however, it is reckoned among his best pieces. This extraordinary person at length conceived thoughts of marriage; and in 1651, was actually married to Mademoiselle d'Aubigne, afterwards the most celebrated Madam de Maintenon, who lodged near him, and who was about 16 years of age. This lady, whose passion for Scarron, if she had any, must have been quite intellectual, had wit and beauty, and served to increase the good company which frequented his house: she also restrained him in his buffooneries, making him more reserved and decent. Scarron died in 1660, and his jolly humour did not die before him. Within a few minutes of his death, when his acquaintance were about him all in tears: "Ah! my friends," (said he), "you will never cry for me so much as I have made you laugh." He wrote many books both prose and verse; but his Comical Romance is almost the only one which continued to be liked by persons of taste; and this was foretold by Boileau.

**SCENE,** in its primary sense, denoted a theatre, or the place where dramatic pieces and other public shows were exhibited; for it does not appear that the ancient poets were at all acquainted with the modern way of changing the scenes in the different parts of the play, in order to raise the idea of the persons represented by the actors being in different places.

The original scene for acting of plays was as simple as the representations themselves: it consisted only of a plain plot of ground proper for the occasion, which was in some degree shaded by the neighbouring trees, whose branches were made to meet together, and their vacancies supplied with boards, sticks, and the like; and to complete the shelter, these were sometimes covered with skins, and sometimes with only the branches of other trees newly cut down, and full of leaves. Afterwards more artificial scenes, or sceneries, representations were introduced, and paintings used instead of the objects themselves. Scenes were then of three sorts: tragic, comic, and satyrical. The tragic scene represented stately magnificent edifices, with decorations of pillars, statues, and other things suitable to the palaces of kings; the comic exhibited private houses with balconies and windows, in imitation of common buildings; and the satyrical was the representation of groves, mountains, dens, and other rural appearances; and these decorations either turned on pivots, or slid along grooves, as those in our theatres.

To keep close to nature and probability, the scene should never be shifted from place to place in the course of the play: the ancients were pretty severe in this respect, particularly Terence, in some of whose plays the scene never shifts at all, but the whole is transacted at the door of some old man's house, whether with inimitable art he occasionally brings the actors. The French are pretty strict with respect to this rule; but the English pay very little regard to it.

Scene is also a part or division of a dramatic poem. Thus plays are divided into acts, and acts are again subdivided into scenes; in which sense the scene is properly the persons present at or concerned in the action on the stage at such a time: whenever, therefore, a new actor appears, or an old one disappears, the action is changed into other hands; and therefore a new scene then commences.

It is one of the laws of the stage, that the scenes be well connected; that is, that one succeed another in such a manner as that the stage be never quite empty till the end of the act. See Portray.

**SCENOGRAPHY,** (from the Greek, σκηνή scene, and γραφειν description), in perspective, a representation of a body on a perspective plane; or a description thereof in all its dimensions, such as it appears to the eye. See Perspective.

**SCEPTER,** a kind of royal staff, or battoon, borne by kings on solemn occasions, as an ensign of command and authority. See Regalia.

**SCEPTICISM,**