"_Hour-glass Stand._ A relick of Puritanick times. They are not very uncommon; they generally stand on the right-hand of the pulpit, and are made of iron. Examples Coton, Shepreth. A curious revolving one occurs at Stoke D'Abernon, Surrey, and in St. John Baptist, Bristol, where the hour-glass itself remains. Though a Puritanick innovation, it long kept its place: for Gay in his _Pastorals_ writes: 'He said that Heaven would take her soul no doubt, And spoke the _hour-glass_ in her praise quite out:' and it is depicted by the side of a pulpit in one of Hogarth's paintings." I saw, a few weeks ago, an iron hour-glass stand affixed to the pulpit in Odell Church, Beds. W. P. STORER. Olney, Bucks. "The inventorie of all such church goods, etc. ... which the church-wardens [of Great Staughton, co. Hunt.] are and stand charged with. May 31, 1640. [_Inter alia._] "Itm. A pulpit standinge in the church, having a cover over the same, and an houre-glasse adjoininge." JOSEPH RIX. St. Neots. _Selling a Wife_ (Vol. vii., pp. 429. 602.).--There can be no question that this offence is an indictable misdemeanor. I made, at the time, a memorandum of the following case: "West Riding Yorkshire Sessions, June 28, 1837. Joshua Jackson, convicted of selling his wife, imprisoned for one month with hard labour." S. R. Chiswick. _Impossibilities of History_ (Vol. viii., p. 72.).--St. Bernard, according to Gibbon, lived from 1091 to 1153. Henry I., who did rebel against his father, was twelve years older than the Saint, and ascended the throne at the age of twenty-one in the year 1100, when the Saint was nine years old. The descent from the devil alludes, I should think, to Robert le Diable, the father of the Conqueror. The historian of _The Tablet_ found the authority most probably in some theatrical review or fly-leaf of the libretto. J. H. L. {210} _Lad and Lass_ (Vol. vii., p. 56.).--_Lass_, Hickes (quoted by Lye in Junius) says, was originally written, and is a corruption of _laddess_; thus, we may suppose _laddess_, _ladse_, _lass_: and _lad_ may correlate with the Gr. ἀγωγὸς, a leader, so familiar to us in the sneered at pæd-_agogue_, _i. e._ the boy-_leader_. The _lad_, from the Anglo-Saxon _lædian_, to lead (says Junius), is the _leăd_--"One who, on account of his tender years, is under a _leader_, a guide, a director." We apply the common expression "He is yet in _leading_ strings" to him who has not strength or courage to go alone, to act independently for himself. Q. Bloomsbury.