A TREATISE ON EQUIVOCATION.
My attention has recently been drawn to the inquiry of J.M. (Vol. i., p. 260.) respecting the work bearing this name. He inquires, "Was the book ever extant in MS. or print? What is its size, date, and extent?" These questions may in part be answered by the following extracts from Parsons's Treatise tending to Mitigation, 1607, to which J.M. refers as containing, "perhaps, all the substance of the Roman equivocation," &c. It appears from these extracts that the treatise was circulated in MS.; that it consisted of ten chapters, and was on eight or nine sheets of paper. If Parsons' statements are true, he, who was then at Douay, or elsewhere out of England, had not seen it till three years after it was referred to publicly by Sir E. Coke, in 1604. Should the description aid in discovering the tract in any library, it may in answering J.M.'s second Query, "Is it now extant, and where?"
(Cap. i. § iii. p. 440.):—
"To hasten then to the matter, I am first to admonish the reader, that whereas this minister doth take upon him to confute a certain Catholicke manuscript Treatise, made in defence of Equivocation, and intercepted (as it seemeth) by them, I could never yet come to the sight therof, and therfore must admit," &c.
And (p 44):—
"This Catholicke Treatise, which I have hope to see ere it be long, and if it come in time, I may chance by some appendix, to give you more notice of the particulars."
In the conclusion (cap. xiii. §ix. p. 553.):—
"And now at this very instant having written hitherto, cometh to my handes the Catholicke Treatise itselfe of Equivocation before meneyoned," &c.... "Albeit the whole Treatise itselfe be not large, nor conteyneth above 8 or 9 sheetes of written paper."
And (§ xi. p. 554.):—
"Of ten chapters he omitteth three without mention."
I.B.