S. Singleton.
Greenwich.
"A Tub to the Whale" (Vol. viii., pp. 220. 304.).—I observe that a Querist, Pimlico, asks the origin of the phrase to "throw a tub to the whale." I think an explanation of this will be found in the introduction to Swift's Tale of the Tub. I cannot lay my hand on the passage, but it is to the effect that sailors engaged in the Greenland fisheries make it a practice to throw over-board a tub to a wounded whale, to divert his attention from the boat which contains his assailants.
J. Emerson Tennent.
Hour-glasses in Pulpits (Vol. vii., p. 489.; Vol. viii., pp. 82. 209.).—Whilst turning over the pages of Macaulay's History, I accidentally stumbled upon the following passage, which forms an interesting addition to the Notes already collected in your pages. Speaking of Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, he says:
"He was often interrupted by the deep hum of his audience; and when, after preaching out the hour-glass, which in those days was part of the furniture of the pulpit, he held it in his hand, the congregation clamorously encouraged him to go on till the sand had run off once more."—Macaulay's History, vol. ii. p. 177. edit. 8., with a reference in a foot-note to Speaker Onslow's Note on Burnet, i. 596.; Johnson's Life of Sprat.
The hour-glass stand at St. Alban's, Wood Street, appears to be a remarkable example: see Sperling's Church Walks in Middlesex, p. 155., and Allen's Lambeth. And in the report of the meeting of the Archæological Association at Rochester, in the Illustrated London News of the 6th August, 1853, it is noted that in the church at Cliff, "the pulpit has an hour-glass stand dated 1636:" the date gives an additional interest to this example.
W. Sparrow Simpson.
Slow-worm Superstition (Vol. viii., p. 33.).—The slow-worm superstition, about which Tower inquires, and to whom I believe no answer has been returned, is quite common in the North of England. One of the many uses of "N. & Q." is the abundant proof that supposed localisms are in fact common to all England. I learn from the same Number, p. 44., that in Devonshire a slater is called a hellier. To hill, that is to cover, "hill me up," i. e. cover me up, is as common in Lancashire as in Wicliff's Bible. We have not, however, hellier or hillier for one whose business it is to cover in a house.
P. P.