Current Literature
THE THREE-CORNERED HAT. Translated out of the Spanish of AlarcOn by Martin Armstrong, with illustrations by Norman Tealby. , (Gerald Howe. 12s. 6d.)—Those who have seen the well-known ballet of the name will turn with stimu- Jated interest to the original story. The Three-Cornered Hat has a European reputation and is the best, perhaps, of the comic tales which AlarcOn based on the folk-lore and ballads - of Andalusia.. It is _a robust and high-spirited comedy of errors. -We may suspect that the coarser salt of peasant humour has been refined away, and the result is a pleasant preposterousness that will beguile even the gloomiest of ,readers regenerative laughter. Frasquita, the wife of the simple-hearted and good-natured Miller, was as good as she was buxom. The senile Corregidor who fell in love with her was ridiculously resplendent in his scarlet cloak and enormous tri-corn hat. How the pompous and absurd aristocrat was ill-treated for his pains and left in a very purgatory of doubt by the unintentional cleverness of the unhappy miller, is the 'matter of this comedy. AlarcOn was contemporary with Dickens, but the folk spirit of his tale is traditional of the Middle Ages, and for a parallel here we must return to Chaucer. The translation is vigorous and- suitably rampant, and its gaiety has been captured in the brightly coloured illustrations.
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