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 quæ 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