3IELVILLE, ANDREW, an eminent Scottish reformer, was b. Aug. 1, 1545, at Baldovy, on the banks of the South Esk, near Montrose. He was educated at the grammar .-school of Montrose, whence he removed in his fourteenth year to the Aniversity of St. Andrews. Here he remained four years, and left it with the reputation of being " the best philosopher, poet, and Grecian of any young master in the land." He then proceeded to Paris, where he continued his studies for two years. His reputation must have been. -already considerable, for in his twenty-first year he was chosen regent in the college of St. Marceon, Poicticrs, whither he had gone a perfect stranger, to acquire a, knowledge of law. Some time afterwards he proceeded to Geneva, where he was more in his ele ment, both politically and reliaiously, and where, by the influence of his friend Beza, he was appointed to the chair obf humanity in the academy. He returned to Scotland in 1574, and was, in the course of the satne year, appointed principal of the university of Glasgow, where his scholarship, energetic discipline, and intrepidity of character exer cised a most quickening and elevating influence. When the regent Morton exclaimed on one occasion, " There will never be quietness in this country‘till half a dozen of you be hanged or banished," 'Melville is said to have replied: "Tugh, man; threaten your courtiers so. It is the same to me whether I rot in the air or in the ground; and I have lived out of your country as well as in it. Let God be praised, you can neither hang nor exile his truth !" In 1580 Melville was chosen principal of St. Mary's college, SL Andrews. Here, "besides giving lectures on theology, lie taught the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and rabbinical languages." In 3582 he pre,ached the opening serrnon before the .general assembly, and boldly "inveighed against the bloody knife of absolute author ity, whereby men intended to pull the crown off Christ's head, and to wring the scepter out of his hand." The assembly applauded Ids intrepidity, drew up a remonstrance in a similar spirit, and appointed Melville and others to present it. In less than two years Melville was summoned before the privy council, on account of a sermon preached at St. Andrews. He declined to appear, maintaining that whatever a preacher might say
in the pulpit, even if it should be called treason, he was not bound to answer for it in a, civil court, until he had been first tried in a church court. For this denial of secular jurisdiction he was condemned -to imprisonment, but escaped to London, where he remained till the downfall of Arran in the following year. After an absence of twenty months he returned to Scotland and resumed his office at St. Andrews. He was repeatedly elected moderator of the general assembly and rector of the university. A remarkable instance of his plain speaking- took plac,e at C`upar in 1596. 3lelville was heading a deputation to "remonstrate" with the king. James reminded the zealous remonstrant that he was his vassal. " Sirrah !" retorted Melville, " ye are God's silly vassal; there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland—there is king James, the head of this commonwealth; and there is Christ Jesus, the king of the church, whose subject James the Sixth is, and of whose kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member." In 1605 Melville was called to England to attend the famous conference at Hampton court. Having ridiculed the service in the chapel royal in a Latin epigram, he was summoned before the English privy council, where his temper gave way, and he broke out into a torrent of invective against the archbishop of Canterbury for encouraging popery and superstition, profaning the Sabbath, etc. The king, violating every principle of justice, immediately sent him to the Tower, where he remained for more than four years. In 1611 he was released on the solicitation of the duke of Bouillon, who wanted his services as a professor in his university at Sedan in France. Melville, now in his sixty-siXth year, would fain have gone home to Scot land to lay his bones there, but the king would on no account hear of such a thing; and he was forced to spend his old age in exile. Melville died about 1622, but neither the date of his death nor the events of his last years are ascertained. See Life of Andrew ifelville by Dr. M'Crie (2 vols. '1819).