The Influence of the Audience on Shakespeare's Drama," in which
Dr. Bridges, in his careful and nervous prose, cal- culates how much the great dramatist was compelled to yield to his immediate public. The garlic-eating groundlings who had paid their money and stood, no ddubt, in London rain, demanded compensation in barbarous pun and rough-and- tumble. The booklet is one of a series of pamphlets which deal in a practical manner with the problem of English spelling. Dr. Bridges uses several new symbols (which our printer has not got) for misrepresented sounds in the language, such as the diphthongal sound in I and the modification of N in the common suffix INC. In an age when the array and precise habiliment of words have scant attention, the Poet Laureate's practice is an object lesson in care and love.
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