Andrew Melville | Page 5

the
massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, Geneva was filled with
Protestant refugees from every Continental country. Never probably
before or since has there been found within one city such an
assemblage of masters of intellect and learning, or such a cloud of
distinguished witnesses for truth and liberty. In Geneva, Melville, like
Knox, received much of his invigoration for the work that awaited him
on his return to his native land.
His residence there was made still more agreeable by the hospitality of
a relative, Henry Scrymgeour, brother of his foster-mother. Scrymgeour
had left Scotland in early life to study law on the Continent, and after
acting as tutor and secretary to several noble families in France and
Italy, he had come to Geneva, and been appointed to the chair of Civil
Law in the College. He had 'atteined to grait ritches, conquesit a prettie
room within a lig to Geneva, and biggit thairon a trim house called
"The Vilet."' In 'the vilet,' where Scrymgeour and his wife and daughter
composed the household, Melville was always a welcome guest.
During Melville's ten years' absence on the Continent he had little
correspondence with his friends at home, and towards the end, as they
had heard nothing of him since he had left Poitiers, they began to fear

that he had perished like so many others in the civil wars in France. A
countryman, however, who had come to Geneva to see Henry
Scrymgeour in order to invite him in the name of well-known friends of
learning in Scotland to become a teacher in one of the Universities,
brought back news of Melville's welfare and reputation, when his
relations immediately wrote and urged him to return to his own country,
and bestow his services as a scholar in raising the low-fallen repute of
Scottish education. With great regret, and bearing with him a letter of
commendation from Beza, in which this distinguished friend used these
words--'the graittest token of affection the Kirk of Genev could schaw
to Scotland is that they had suffered thamselves to be spuiled of Mr.
Andro Melville, wherby the Kirk of Scotland might be inritched'--he
left the city where, like Knox before him, he spent his happiest days.
He arrived in Edinburgh in the beginning of July 1574.
CHAPTER III
SERVICES TO SCOTTISH EDUCATION--PRINCIPALSHIP OF
GLASGOW AND ST. ANDREWS
'He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one; ... Ever witness for him
Those twins of learning that he raised in you.'
Henry VIII.
It was in the interests of education, and for the purpose of reviving
Scottish learning, that Melville had been induced to come back to his
native land, and it will be convenient to devote a chapter to this subject
before we consider the graver, more crucial interests in which he was
destined to take a decisive part. He had not been many days in the
country when Regent Morton offered him an appointment as Court
Chaplain, with the ulterior view of attaching him to his patron's
ecclesiastical policy. Whether having this suspicion or no, Melville
declined the post. He had returned to Scotland for educational work,
and he determined to wait for an opening in one of the Universities.
Meanwhile he wished a little repose with the friends from whom he had
been so long separated; and he went to Baldovy, where he was received

with much affection. It was at this time that the attachment between
him and his nephew was formed and consecrated by a kind of
sacramental act on the part of the father of the latter--'I was resigned
ower be my father hailelie into him to veak[1] upon him as his sone and
servant, and, as my father said to him, to be a pladge of his love. And
surlie his service was easie, nocht to me onlie, bot even to the fremdest
man that ever served him.'
[Footnote 1: Wait.]
So great was Melville's scholarly reputation by this time that, at the
General Assembly held a month after his return, the Universities of
Glasgow and St. Andrews put in competing claims for his services as
Principal. He decided in favour of Glasgow, on account of its greater
need; and at the end of October he left Baldovy, accompanied by his
nephew, to enter on his academic office. On the way two days were
spent in Stirling, where the King, then a boy of nine, was residing; and
the Melvilles saw him and were much struck with his precocity in
learning: 'He was the sweitest sight in Europe that day for strange and
extraordinar gifts of ingyne, judgment, memorie, and langage. I hard
him discours, walking upe and doun in the auld Lady Marr's hand, of
knawlage and ignorance, to my grait marvell and estonishment.' James
never lost his fancy