"
The last chapter, which is "Of the Examination and Manifold Proofs of
this History," concludes with the following observations by
Messingham himself.
"This History of Owen the Soldier, as to that part of it that is
related by Henry Salteriensis, I borrow'd from an ancient Manuscript
of the said Author now extant in the Library of St. Victor, and that
related by Mathew Paris, I took from his printed History of England:
But if after all, any Man chuse rather to oppose, than piously to
believe the same, let him consult the Holy Fathers, St. Gregory,
Venerable Bede, Dionysius Carthusianus, and carefully read the
various Revelations, Visions, and Relations not unlike these recorded
by them; to which as to things very probable they themselves were not
afraid to give Credit, and which they would not presume to deny."
Calderon was not the only celebrated poet who made the Purgatory of
St. Patrick the subject of his song. Four centuries before the great
Spanish dramatist was born, a most elaborate and very lengthy poem
was written on the same attractive theme by Marie de France, the
first woman, as M. de Roquefort says,who ever wrote French verse, the
Sappho of her age.* Nor was Marie herself the only minstrel of that
early time who yielded to the fascination of this legend. Two
anonymous Trouveres of a little later period were unconsciously her
rivals in the attempt.
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