of Ardgour, had _handfasted_ (as it was
called) with a daughter of Mac Ian of Ardnamurchan, whom he had taken on
a promise of marriage, if she pleased him. At the expiration of two
years he sent her home to her father; but his son by her, the gallant
John of Invorscaddel, a son of Maclean of Ardgour, celebrated in the
history of the Isles, was held to be an illegitimate offspring by virtue
of the "handfast ceremony."

Another instance is recorded of a Macneil of Borra having for several
years enjoyed the society of a lady of the name of Maclean on the same
principle; but his offspring by her were deprived {152} of their
inheritance by the issue of his subsequent marriage with a lady of the
Clanrannald family.

These decisions no doubt tended to the abolition of a custom or
principle so subversive of marriage and of the legitimacy of offspring.

J.M.G.

Worcester, July 19.

_Russian Language_.--A friend of mine, about to go to Russia, wrote to
me some time since, to ask if he could get a _Russian grammar in
English, or any English books bearing on the language_. I told him I did
not think there were any; but would make inquiry. Dr. Bowring, in his
_Russian Anthology_, states as a remarkable fact, that the first Russian
grammar ever published was published in England. It was entitled _H.W.
Ludolfi Grammatica Russica quae continet et Manuductionem quandum ad
Grammaticam Slavonicam_. Oxon. 1696. The Russian grammar next to this,
but published in its own language, was written by the great Lomonosov,
the father of Russian poetry, and the renovator of his mother tongue: I
know not the year, but it was about the middle of the last century. I
have a German translation of this grammar "Von Johann Lorenz
Stuvenhagen: St. Petersburgh, 1764." Grotsch, Jappe, Adelung, &c., have
written on the Russian language. Jappe's grammar, Dr. Bowring says, is
the best he ever met with. I must make a query here with regard to Dr.
Bowring's delightful and highly interesting _Anthologies_. I have his
Russian, Dutch, and Spanish _Anthologies_: _Did he ever publish any
others_? I have not met with them. I know he contemplated writing
translations from Polish, Servian, Hungarian, Finnish, Lithonian, and
other poets.

Jarltzberg.

_Pistol and Bardolph_.--I am glad to be able to transfer to your pages a
Shakspearian note, which I met with in a periodical now defunct. It
appears from an old MS. in the British Museum, that amongst canoniers
s