Notes and Queries, Number 190, June 18, 1853 | Page 2

the hour-glass in the
pulpit formerly in this country. {590}
In an extract from the churchwardens' accounts of the parish of St.
Helen, in Abingdon, Berks, we find the following entry:
"Anno MDXCI. 34 Eliz. 'Payde for an houre-glasse for the pulpit,'
4d."--See Hone's Table-Book, vol. i. p. 482.
Among the accounts of Christ Church, St. Catherine's, Aldgate, under
the year 1564, this entry occurs:
"Paid for an hour-glass that hangeth by the pulpitt when the preacher
doth make a sermon that he may know how the hour passeth
away."--Malcolm's Londinium, vol. iii. p. 309., cited Southey's
Common-Place Book, 4th Series, p. 471.
In Fosbrooke (Br. Mon., p. 286.) I find the following passage:
"A stand for an hour-glass still remains in many pulpits. A rector of
Bibury (in Gloucestershire) used to preach two hours, regularly turning
the glass. After the text the esquire of the parish withdrew, smoaked his
pipe, and returned to the blessing."
The authority for this, which Fosbrooke cites, is Rudder's
Gloucestershire, in "Bibury." It is added that lecturers' pulpits have also
hour-glasses The woodcuts in Hawkins's Music, ii. 332., are referred to
in support of this statement. I regret that I have no means of consulting
the two last-mentioned authorities.
In 1681 some poor crazy people at Edinburgh called themselves the
Sweet Singers of Israel. Among other things, they renounced the
limiting the Lord's mind by glasses. This is no doubt in allusion to the
hour-glass, which Mr. Water, the editor of the fourth series of Southey's
Common-Place Book, informs us is still to be found, or at least its iron
frame, in many churches, adding that the custom of preaching by the

hour-glass commenced about the end of the sixteenth century. I cannot
help thinking that an earlier date must be assigned to this singular
practice. (See Southey's Common-Place Book, 4th series, p. 379.) Mr.
Water states that one of these iron frames still exists at Ferring in
Sussex. The iron extinguishers still to be found on the railing opposite
large houses in London, are a similar memorial of an obsolete custom.
I trust some contributor to the "N. & Q." will be able to supply farther
illustrations of this custom. Should it be revived in our own times, I
fear most parishes would supply only a half-hour glass for the pulpit of
their church, however unanimous antiquity may be in favour of
sermons of an hour's duration. One advantage presented by this ancient
and precise practice was, that the squire of the parish knew exactly
when it was time to put out his pipe and return for the blessing, which
he cannot ascertain under the present uncertain and indefinite mode of
preaching. Fosbrooke (Br. Mon., p. 286.) states that the priest had
sometimes a watch found for him by the parish. The authority cited for
this is the following entry in the accounts of the Chantrey Wardens of
the parish of Shire in Surrey:
"Received for the priest's watch after he was dead, 13s.
4d."--Manning's Surrey, vol. i. p. 531.
This entry seems to be rather too vague and obscure to warrant the
inference drawn from it. This also may be susceptible of farther
illustration.
A. W. S.
Temple.
* * * * *
THE MEGATHERIUM AMERICANUM IN THE BRITISH
MUSEUM.
Amongst the most interesting specimens of that collection certainly
ranges the skeleton of the above animal of a primæval world, albeit but

a cast; the real bones, found in Buenos Ayres, being preserved in the
Museum of Madrid. To imagine a sloth of the size of a large bear,
somewhat baffles our imagination; especially if we ponder upon the
size of trees on which such a huge animal must have lived. To have
placed near him a nondescript branch (!!) of a palm, as has been done
in the Museum here, is a terrible mistake. Palms there were none at that
period of telluric formation; besides, no sloth ever could ascend an
exogenous tree, as the simple form of the coma of leaves precludes
every hope of motion, &c. I never can view those remnants of a former
world, without being forcibly reminded of that most curious passage in
Berosus, which I cite from memory:
"There was a flood raging then over parts of the world.... There were to
be seen, however, on the walls of the temple of Belus, representations
of animals, such as inhabited the earth before the Flood."
We may thence gather, that although the ancient world did not possess
museums of stuffed animals, yet, the first collection of Icones is
certainly that mentioned by Berosus. I think that it was about the times
of the Crusades, that animals were first rudely preserved (stuffed),
whence the emblems in the coats of arms of the nobility also took their
origin. I have