In all that relates to the Purgatory, Montalvan's work is itself
chiefly compiled from the "Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum, seu vitae
et Actae sanctorum Hiberniae," Paris, 1624, fol. This work, which
has now become scarce, was written by Thomas Messingham an Irish
priest, the Superior of the Irish Seminary in Paris. No complete
English version appears to have been made of it, but a small tract in
English containing everything in the original work that referred to
St. Patrick's Purgatory was published at Paris in 1718. As this
tract is perhaps more scarce than even the Florilegium itself, the
account of the Purgatory as given by Messingham from the MS. of Henry
of Saltrey is reprinted in the notes to this drama in the quaint
language of the anonymous translator. Of this tract, "printed at
Paris in 1718" without the name of author, publisher or printer, I
have not been able to trace another copy. In other points of
interest connected with Calderon's drama, particularly to the
clearing up of the difficulty hitherto felt as to the confused list
of authorities at the end, the reader is also referred to the notes.

The present version of "The Purgatory of Saint Patrick" is, with the
exception of a few unimportant lines, an entirely new translation.
It is made with the utmost care, imitating all the measures and
contained, like the two preceding dramas, in the exact number of
lines of the original. One passage of the translation which I
published in 1853 is retained in the notes, as a tribute of respect
to the memory of the late John Rutter Chorley, it having been
mentioned with praise by that eminent Spanish scholar in an elaborate
review of my earlier translations from Calderon, which appeared in
the "Athenaeum", Nov. 19 and Nov. 26, 1853.

It only remains to add that the text I have followed is that of