Capa y Espada

write—at least in its entirety or in its present form—the most famous play which bears his name. I do not rule out the possibility that Rojas collaborated in its composition or that the play, as we know it, is a refundición of an earlier play by Rojas. Judging from the evidence at hand, however , I suspect that its attribution to him in the late seventeenth-century suelta marks another instance of a publisher's arbitrary ascription of a play of unknown authorship to a prominent dramatist. 1.Cuarta parte de comedias nuevas de don Pedro Calderón de la Barca . . . Lleva un pròlogo del autor, en que distingue las comedias que son verdaderamente suyas o no. Año 1672. En Madrid. 2.Emilio Cotarelo y Mori, Don Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, noticias biográficas (Madrid, 1911), p. 157. 3.In his edition (Cambridge, 1935), J. W. Barker wrote (p. ix, footnote) : "Garcia del Castañar seems to have been written 1646-1647. . . . Form, finish and metre suggest a mature mind and a practised hand. Rojas died on 20 Jan. 1648. It would be pleasing to think that the play reflects the happiness of Rojas' married life (he was married in 1640), and his knighthood , Aug. 1643." Similarly, a more recent editor, Pablo Pou Fernández, wrote (in the ed. Biblioteca Clásica Ebro, Zaragoza, 1950, p. 6): "Felipe IV prohibe las representacionei teatrales por la muerte de su hijo el Príncipe Baltasar Carlos. Esta prohibición durará hasta después de la muerte de Rojas. Es de suponer que por estas fechas [1646] escribiría Del rey abajo, ninguno, ya que esta obra no aparece en ninguna de las dos partes de las Comedias publicadas por el mismo autor. Es, pues, obra de los últimos tiempos y en su preparación influir ía, tal vez, la pretensión del hábito de Santiago y el deseo de complacer al monarca." 4.Rojas did compose an auto sacramental {El gran patio de palacio) in 1647 when permission was given to hold the Corpus Christi celebrations in Madrid, but so unexpected was this permission granted that Rojas had only three days to write the auto. 5.A. Valbuena Prat, Literatura dramática española (Barcelona, 1930), p. 258. 6.H. A. Rennert, The Spanish Stage in the Time of Lope de Vega (New York, 1909), p. 122, remarked that Rojas was the most shameless of all Golden Age dramatists in persistently begging for applause. 7.For the data on the percentage of various verse forms in Rojas' plays I am indebted to Dorothy L. Duis, "Versification in the comedias of Rojas Zorrilla," (unpublished Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 1926). Capa y Espada Conducted by the Editor • Honors and Awards: At a meeting of the Board of Trustees in October, 1956, Henry Grattan Doyle, Dean of the Columbian College of the George Washington University , was elected Honorary President of the Hispanic Society ol America. At the same meeting the Duquesa de Alba was elected Honorary Vice President. Congratulations! John E. Keller, our Associate Editor, won a research fellowship to Spain for the spring semester. Sturgis E. Leavitt has kindly agreed to do the Associate Editor's work for this issue. • Francis C. Hayes reports that the comedia library of D. Arturo Sedó (Calle Aragón 332, Barcelona) contains more than 100,000 -piezas sobre teatro. José Porter, Archs, 3, Barcelona has published a limited edition catalogue for 250 pesetas. • The Editors of the Hispanic Review send us the following bibliographical information from the Houghton Library Report of Accessions for the Year 1955-1956 (Harvard College Library, Cambridge, 1956), pp. 25-26: "Among other Spanish Books acquired is ... an unrecorded first printing of Gabriel Téllez, Primera [-quarta] parte de los entremeses de los Alcaldes, Segovia 1627-29 with appended to the third part a four-page romance by Góngora." • What can we do to encourage outstanding research in the comedian I asked this question of Willis Knapp Jones seated across the table from me at the last Comediantes' Luncheon in Washington and he replied, "Offer a prize or a citation for the best book or article...