Notes and Queries, Number 40, August 3, 1850

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 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 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 serving in Normandy in 1436, were "Wm. Pistail—R. Bardolf." Query, Were these common English names, or did these identical canoniers transmit a traditional fame, good or bad, to the time of Shakspeare, in song or story?

If this is a well-known Query, I should be glad to be referred to a solution of it, if not, I leave it for inquiry.

    G.H.B.

EPIGRAM FROM BUCHANAN.

Doletus writes verses and wonders—ahem—When there's nothing in him, that there's nothing in them.

    J.O.W.H.

QUERIES

CALVIN AND SERVETUS

The fate of Servetus has always excited the deepest commiseration. His death was a judicial crime, the rank offence of religious pride, personal hatred, and religious fanaticism. It borrowed from superstition its worst features, and offered necessity the tyrant's plea for its excuse. Every detail of such events is of great interest. For by that immortality of mind which exists for ever as History, or through the agency of those successive causes which still link us to it by their effects, we are never separated from the Past. There is also an eloquence in immaterial things which appeals to the heart through all ages. Is there a man who would enter unmoved the room in which Shakspeare was born, in which Dante dwelt, or see with indifference the desk at which Luther wrote, the porch beneath which Milton sat, or Sir Isaac Newton's study? So also the possession of a book once their own, still more of the MS. of a work by which great men won enduring fame, written in a great cause, for which they struggled and for which they suffered, seems to efface the lapse of centuries. We feel present before them. They are before us as living witnesses. Thus we see Servetus as, alone and on foot, he arrived at Geneva in 1553; the lake and the little inn, the "Auberge de la Rose," at which he stopped, reappear pictured by the influence of local memory and imagination. From his confinement in the old prison near St. Peter's, to the court where he was accused, during the long and cruel trial, until the fatal eminence of Champel, every event arises before us, and the air is peopled with thick coming visions of the actors and sufferer in the dreadful scene. Who that has read the account of his death has not heard, or seemed to hear, that shriek, so high, so wild, alike for mercy and of dread despair, which when the fire was kindled burst above through smoke and flame,—"that the crowd fell back with a shudder!" Now it strikes me, an original MS. of the work for which he was condemned still exists; and I, thinking that others may feel the interest I have tried to sketch in its existence, will now state the facts of the case, and lay my authorities before your readers.

"We condemn you, said the council, Michael Servetus, to be bound and led to Champel, where you are to be fastened to a stake, and burnt alive together with your book, as well the printed as the MS."

"About midday he was led to the stake. An iron chain encompassed his body; on his head was placed a crown of plaited straw and leaves strewed with sulphur, to assist in suffocating him. At his girdle were suspended his printed books; and the MS. he had sent to Calvin."

This MS. had been completed in 1546, and sent to Geneva for his opinion. Calvin, in a letter to Farel says:

"Servetus wrote to me lately, and accompanied his letter with a long volume of his insanities."

This long volume was the MS. of the "Restitutio Christianismi," now ready for the press. We have seen that it was sent to Calvin. It was never returned, but produced in evidence, and burnt with him at the stake. Nevertheless, he either possessed another copy or took the pains of writing it afresh, and thus the work was secretly printed at Vienna, at the press of Balshazar Arnoullet in 1553. Of this edition, those at Frankfort were burnt at the instance of Calvin; at Geneva, Robert Stephens sacrificed all the copies which had come into his hands; so that of an edition of one thousand, it is said only six copies were preserved. These facts I owe to the excellent Life of Calvin by Mr. T.H. Dyer, recently published by Mr. Murray. Now does the following MS. bear relation to that described as recopied by Servetus, from which Arnoullet printed? or is it the first rough sketch? Can any of your readers say into what collection it passed?

The extract is from the Catalogue of the Library of Cisternay Dufay, by Gabriel Martin, Paris, 8vo. 1725, being lot 764., p. 98., and was sold for 176 livres.

"Librorum Serveti de Trinitate Codex MS. autographus. In fronte libri apparet note quæ sequitur, manu ipsius defuncti D. du Fay exarata.

"Forsan ipsius auctoris autographus Codex hic MS. qui fuit percelebris Bibliopolæ Basiliensis Coelii Horatii Curionis. Videtur prima conceptio (vulgò l'Esquisse, en termes de Peinture) Libri valdè famigerati Mich. Serveti, a Joanne Calvino cum ipso Serveto combusti, cui Titulus, Christianismi Restitutio, hoc est totius Ecclesiæ Apostolicæ ad sua limina Vocatio, &c. &c., typis mandati anno 1554, Viennæ Allobrogum, 8vo. pagg. 734," concluding with an anecdote of the rarity of the volume.

There may be some to whom these "Notes" may be of use, others to whom a reply to the "Queries" may have interest, and so I send them to you. Such MSS. are of great historical importance.

    S.H.

Athenæum, July 26.

ETYMOLOGICAL QUERIES

Any remarks on the meaning and derivation of the following words, will be thankfully received.

Rykelot.—A magpie?

Berebarde.—"In the fever or the Berebarde."

Wrusum, or Wursum.—"My wounds that were healed gather new wrusum, and begin to corrupt."

Deale.—Placed always between two sentences without any apparent connection with either of them. Is it an abbreviation of "Dieu le sait?"

Sabraz.—"He drinks bitter sabraz to recover his health."

Heteneste.—"Inclosed hetenest in a stone coffin or tomb."

Schunche.—"Schunche away."

I-menbred.—"A girdle i-menbred."

Blodbendes of silk.

Hesmel.—"Let their hesmel be high istiled, al without broach."

Irspille.—"Wear no iron, nor haircloth, nor irspilles felles."

    J. Mn.

MINOR QUERIES

Countess of Desmond.—I should be much obliged if any of your readers would inform me of the manner of the death of Catherine Fitzgerald, Countess of Desmond, commonly called the "old Countess of Desmond," who died in 1626, aged above 140 years,—some say, 162 years. I think I remember reading, some years since, that she died from a fall from a cherry-tree, at the age of 144 years. If so, where can the account be found?

    K.

Cheetham Hill.

Noli me tangere.—Can any of your readers refer me to pictures upon the subject of Noli me tangere. I want to know what artists have treated the subject, and where their pictures exist.

    B.R.

Line in Milton's "Penseroso."—In those somewhat hacknied lines,