[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. 1. I suppose no one will be disposed to question the extreme improbability of the "sermons" in the Apostolic are having been _written_ discourses: if, however, this be considered doubtful, I am willing to argue the point, and be set right if I am wrong in thinking it unquestionable. 2. I believe it is almost as improbable, that in what Professor Brunt calls the "post-Apostolic" times sermons were written, not only from the complete silence of the Apostolic Fathers on the point--for that would really prove next to nothing,--but because it seems quite incredible that no vestige of any such sermon should have come down to us; no forgery of one, no legend or tradition of the existence of one if the practice of writing sermons had prevailed at all.