152 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 40. 



of their inheritance by the issue of his subsequent 

 marriage with a lady of the Clanrannald family. 



These decisions no doubt tended to the abo- 

 lition of a custom or principle so subversive of 

 marriage and of the legitimacy of offspring. 



J. M. G. 



Worcester, July 19. 



liussian Language. — A friend of mine, about to 

 go to Russia, wrote to me some time since, to ask if 

 lie could get a Russian grammar in English, or any 

 English looks hearing on the language. I told him I did 

 not think there were any ; but would make inquiry. 

 Dr. Bowring, in his Russian Antholngy, states as a 

 remarkable fact, that the first Russian graunnar 

 ever published was published in England, It was 

 entitled H. W. Ludolfi Grammatica Russica quce con- 

 tinet et Manuductionem quandum ad Grammaficam 

 Slavonicam. Oxon. 1696. The Russian grammar 

 next to this, but published in its own language, 

 was written by the great Lomonosov, the i'athcr 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 Loi-enz 

 Stiivenhagen : 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 

 aud highly interesting Anthologies. I have his 

 Russian, Dutch, and Spanish Anthologies : Did he 

 ever publish any others f I have not met with 

 them. I know he contemplated writing translations 

 from Polish, Servian, Hungarian, Finnish, Litho- 

 nian, and other poets. Jarltzbekg. 



Pistol and Bai-dolph. — 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 IMuseum, 

 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 shouM be glad 

 to be referred to a solution of it, if not, I leave it 

 for inquiry. G. H. B. 



EPIGRAM FKOM BUCHANAN. 



Doletus writes verses and wonders — ahem — 

 AVhen there's nothing in him, that there's nothing 

 in them. J. Q. AV. H. 



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 

 siqierstition its worst features, and otfered neces- 

 sity the tyrant's plea for its excuse. Every detail 

 of such events is of great interest. For by that 

 immortality of mind which e.\ists for ever as His- 

 tory, 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 Shak- 

 speare was born, in wliich Datite dwelt, or see 

 with indifference the <lesk 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 IMS. of a work by 

 which great n)en won enduring fame, written in 

 a great cause, tor 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 Ge- 

 neva in 1553 ; the lake an<l the little inn, the 

 " Auberge de la Rose," at which he stopped, re- 

 appear pictured by tlie intluence 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 

 condenmed 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 Ser- 

 vetus, 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 willi sulphur, 

 to assist in sufTocating him. At his girdle were sus- 

 pended 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 "Resti- 

 tutio Christianismi," now ready for the press. We 



