S. S.
[Richard Tottle, dwelling at the Hand and Star in Fleet Street, and who was "licensed to print all manner of books touching the common laws of England," published in the middle of the sixteenth century the following work:—"The Abridgment of the Book of Assises, lately perused over and corrected, and now newely imprinted by Richard Tottle, the last day of September, 1555." It is probable that the Iters of Pickring and Lancaster are still in manuscript.]
Life of Cromwell.
—I have in my possession a Life of Cromwell, written by R. B. "without passion or partiality," printed by N. Crouch in the Poultry, 1715. Query, who was this R. B.?
PHILO.
[The author was Richard or Robert Burton, alias Nathaniel Crouch, who, says Dunton in his Life and Errors, "melted down the best of our English histories into twelve penny books, which are filled with wonders, rarities, and curiosities." The first edition of The History of Cromwell was published in 1693, "relating only matters of fact without reflection or observation.">[
Replies.
WRITTEN SERMONS AND EXTEMPORE PREACHING.
(Vol. iii., pp. 478. 526.; Vol. iv., p. 8.)
Your versatile correspondent MR. GATTY has been led astray by an incorrect assertion of Bingham's (magni nominis vir), that Origen was the first who preached extempore. The passage to which Bingham refers us, in Eusebius, asserts nothing of this sort; but simply that Origen would not suffer his sermons to be taken down by the short-hand writers till he was sixty years old,—a sufficient proof, if any were needed, that the custom of taking down sermons by notaries in the third century was not unusual.
Some rogue has stolen my Number of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" in which the inquiry on the subject of written sermons was made; but, if I remember rightly, the question was put correctly, it having been asked when written sermons were first preached. As I at one time took some pains to look into this point, and as no one else seems inclined to take it up, perhaps you will allow me space for a few remarks.