23 APRIL 1932, Page 17

GRAVE CHARGE.

Could not a better subject be found for your Competitors to exercise their wits on than the vulgarization of our finest English literature ? I refer particularly to the turning of Shakespeare's lovely " Orpheus with his Lute " into American jazz which lately disfigured your pages. And now I see that it is proposed to mutilate the Balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. Surely this sort of thing is not worthy of the high standard which the Spectator has hitherto maintained.— E. F. CRAW:4ER, The White House, Laekford, Hants.