"-- 'The Excellent and Pleasant Worke of Julius Solinus
Polyhistor. Translated out of Latin into English by Arthur Golding,
Gent.' At London, 1587. p. 105.
The last name in the list of authorities on the subject of St.
Patrick's Purgatory is "Mensignano," with the reference in the margin
of Montalvan's 'Vida y Purgatorio' to his 'Florilegium'. This of
course is Messingham, out of whose book, aided by his own wild
imagination, Perez de Montalvan created the character of Luis Enius,
who is presented to us with such dramatic power by Calderon.
Notwithstanding the length of these notes, the following summary,
taken with some corrections from the Introduction to the former
translation of this drama (1853), may still be useful:--
The curious history of Luis Enius, on which the principal interest of
the play depends, has been alluded to, and given more or less fully
by many ancient authors. The name, though slightly altered by the
different persons who have mentioned him, can easily be recognised as
the same in all, whether as Owen, Oien, Owain, Egan, Euenius, or
Enius. Perhaps the earliest allusion to him in any printed English
work is that contained in Ranulph Higden's "Polychronicon," published
at Westminster, by Wynkin de Worde, in 1495: "In this Steven's tyme,
a knyght that hyght Owen wente in to the Purgatory of the second
Patrick, abbot, and not byshoppe.
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