MELVILLE, ANDREW, a learned Scotsman, and one of the most distinguished successors of John Knox in the Prysbyterian church, was the youngest of nine sons of Richard Melville of Baldovy, in Forfarshirc, and was born on the 1st of August, 1545. In his second year, he lost his father at the battle of Pinkie, and was brought up in the family of his eldest brother Richard, where he was treated with great tenderness and affec tion. While a child, he was distinguished as much for the quickness of his capacity, as for the delicacy of his constitution ; and his brother resolved to give him as complete an education as the age could afford. He was instructed in grammar by Thomas Anderson, then schoolmaster, and afterwards minister, at Mentrose, who also initiated him into the principles of the reforma tion ; and after having completed the usual routine of elementary education at the Latin school, he studied the Greek and French languages under Pierre de Mar silliers, a Frenchman, who was then engaged in teach ing at Montrose. In 1559, he became a student in St. Mary's College, St. Andrews ; and after comple ting his academical course there, he sailed to France in his nineteenth year, and engaged ardently in the study of letters and philosophy in the university of Paris. For the purpose of studying the civil law. he repaired to Poitiers in his twenty-first year ; and, on his arrival, he was made a regent in the college of St. Marceon. Here he continued three years, prosecuting with great success the study of jui isprudence, and at the same time distinguishing himself as a teacher of rhetoric. His next object was to study theology, and with this inten tion he went to Geneva, where he immediately proved himself worthy to fill the vacant chair of humanity.
In the year 1574, at the urgent desire of his friends in Scotland, Alelville resigned his office at Geneva, and returned to his native country. Some of his friends now endeavoured to persuade him to accept the ap pointment of domestic instructor to the Regent Murton ; but this he declined, and spent a few months in his el der brother's house, assisting the studies of his nephew, James Melville, who had recently completed the usual course of academical education at St. Andrew's. Soon
afterwards, at the solicitation of Archbishop Boyd, and other leading men in the west, he accepted the office of Principal of Gla'sgow college, and carried his nephew James along with him to act as regent. In this situa tion he laboured with great diligence and success, in troduced a new plan of study, and made many useful improvements in the mode of teaching ; and a new foundation, which was given to the college at this time by royal charter, ratified all the dispositions which Mel ville had made for the advancement of learning. Among his other services to the university, lie deserves the credit of having founded the public library, though it does not appear that he enriched it with any dona tions from his own collection. About this time, he first became known as an author, by the appearance of his poetical translation of the Song of Moses, &c. printed at Basil, in 1574,—a collection which experienced a most flattering reception from all the men of learning and taste in Europe.
The constitution of his office, as a professor of divinity, entitled him to a seat in the ecclesiastical judicatories ; and he took a very active interest in the public affairs of the church. When he arrived in Scotland, an in congruous species of church government,—nominally Episcopalian, but which neither satisfied Episcopalians nor Presbyterians,—had been introduced; but Mel ville was convinced that prelacy is not founded on the authority of Scripture, or on the practice of apostolical times ; and having conceived a partiality for Presbyte rian parity, in consequence of his experience of its good effects tin Geneva, he determined to exert himself to establish the same inodel in his own country. In the month of March, 1575, lie was first a member of the General Assembly ; and his name was included in a committee appointed to confer with the government on the subject of the polity of the church, and to prepare a scheme of ecclesiastical administration, to be submit ted to a future Assembly. In the year 1578, the se cond book of Discipline was approved by a General Assembly, in which Melville presided ; and from that period it has been the standard of Presbyterian church government.