Persons Robert Robert Parsons (4 results)

[6bl.] + 361pp. + [9] pp. (index & errata) + [6bl.] pp., engraved vignet on title with the motto "Melior post funera vita" ("Life is better after the funeral"), ancient manuscript ex-libris on title : "Ex Libris Joannis Schrick", 15x10cm., contemporary full vellum (stained, some loss of vellum at lower ends of boards, missing ties), text and interior are clean and bright except for few occasional ancient text underlinings, text within borders, cfr. De Backer-Sommervogel VI-301-no.13, [This Catholic polemic, written in a time of great tension between protestant England and Catholic Spain, is a fierce response to an official edict issued by Queen Elizabeth I in November 1591 in which she enacted strict measures against Catholics and Jesuits in England], R121114.…

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. 1st edn. ~Eighteenth-century half calf, marbled paper to boards. Raised bands and red gilt label to spine. 4to (14 x 19.2cm). Starting at top spine over front and rear hinges (c. 3.5cm). Replacement laid paper endpapers. Bookplate to inside front board. Browning to title page, and outer margin of t.p. neatly reinforced at verso. Final (blank) page of table to rear laid down. A little worming to inner margins, not affecting text. Head- and tail-pieces and decorated initials. No publisher; according to British Library record printed at Saint-Omer by F. Bellet. Published anonymously (Persons appears as ''a Catholicke Devyne'' on the title page). Owner''s signature in old hand to t.p.: ''George Taylor''. A response by Persons, arguably early modern England''s foremost Catholic polemicist, to the Edward Coke, later Chief Justice, the country''s most distinguished jurist, who in his spectacular series of Reports ''provided a critical mass of material for the rapidly developing modern common law'', and, in the 1605 Fifth Part of the Reports, included his ''treatise on the crown''s ecclesiastical supremacy'' (ODNB). Persons'' response includes his defence against Coke''s ''extravagant excursions'' (sig. 2a3v) during the trial of Henry Garnett, Persons'' fellow Jesuit, in the wake of the Gunpowder plot (Garnett had been made aware of the plot under the seal of the confessional, and was hung, drawn, and quartered on 3 May 1606; Coke had inveighed against him as a ''Doctor of Dissimulation'' (Caraman, 1964, Garnet, 403)). ''The critique of these procedures was linked to a questioning of Coke''s celebration of English freedom from canon law; in Persons''s view, the state of English justice was in serious decline'' (ODNB). Persons, ''feared by his opponents for his satirical wit and powers of logical demolition'' (ODNB), was also also a brilliant prose stylist: ''(t)he writings of Hooker, who was a Country Clergyman, and of Parsons the Jesuit'', wrote Jonathan Swift a century later, ''are in a style that, with very few Allowances, would not offend any present Reader; much more clear and intelligible than (.) several others who wrote later'' (The Tatler, 28 September 1710). Allison & Rogers 611; Backer & Sommervogel VI, 311. ~Robust packaging. Tracking can be added to overseas orders. Used books are exempt from USA tariffs. Size: (70), 386, (14)pp.…

title-page+[30}+758+[2]pp., lacking pp.365-378 (Aa7 - Bb5). Without first and last blank? Rebound in 20th century half calf over marbled boards, spine rubbed. A corner of new front endpaper cut. Shelf number on title and the first leaf, no other inscriptions. Shipping: insured air mail. Images available on request.…

Condition: Sehr gut. c. 19 x 13 cm. TP, (2), 485 pages, (14) [Index & Errata sic corrigito]. Collation: TP, (2), A4 - Z4, Aa4 - Zz4, Aaa4 - Rrr2 Contemporary limp vellum. Handwritten title on spine. Very good condition. Some shelf wear to binding with a small hole near the top of the spine. Edges and end papers dust dulled. Lacks page 23/24. Some old annotations and underlining to a small number of pages. Otherwise a bright and clean copy. Robert Persons SJ (1546 - 1610), later known as Robert Parsons, was an English Jesuit priest. He was a major figure in establishing the 16th-century "English Mission" of the Society of Jesus. Elizabethæ Angliæ reginæ hæresim Calvinianam propvgnantis sævissimvm in Catholicos sui regni Edictvm . . . promulgatum Londini 29 Nouembris 1591. Cum responsione ad singula capita . . . per D. Andream Philopatrum, presb. ac theol. Romanum, Lvgduni, 1592. This Latin work was a detailed rebuttal of a proclamation of Elizabeth I of October 1591, against seminary priests and Jesuits. It was published under the pseudonym Andreas Philopater.…