In the beginning of the year 1608 a commission, consisting of the Archbishop of Glasgow, the Bishop of the Isles (Andrew Knox), Andrew Stewart, Lord Ochiltree, and Sir James Hay of Kingask, proceeded to the Isles with power to summon the chiefs to a conference, for the purpose of intimating to them the measures in contemplation by the government. A meeting for this purpose was held at Aross Castle, one of the seats of Maclean, in Mull, at which the principal barons and heads of houses attended.
The regulations contemplated had for their object the introduction of an additional number of pious divines, who were to be provided for out of the lands of the great island proprietors; the abolishing a certain remarkable custom which till then prevailed, namely, that of taking a wife on approbation, or, in plain intelligible terms, _on trial_!
The following are two examples recorded of this singular custom.
John Mac-Vic Ewen, fourth laird 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.
_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 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.