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 {137} 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.