BIRTH--EDUCATION--YEARS ABROAD
'Fashioned to much honour from his cradle.'
_Henry VIII._
Melville's birthplace was Baldovy, an estate in the immediate
neighbourhood of Montrose, of which his father was laird. He was born on
1st August 1545--a year memorable as that of Knox's emergence to public
life--the youngest of nine sons, most of whom came to fill honourable
positions in the Church and commonwealth.
Montrose and the district around it early showed sympathy with the
Reformed Faith. George Wishart was a native of Angus, and his influence
was nowhere greater than there. The family seat of John Erskine--Dun
House--was in the same vicinity, and he too by his warm espousal of
Protestantism strengthened its hold on the district. The Baldovy family
itself had been identified with the Reformed movement from the
beginning. Melville's eldest brother, Richard, who became minister of
Maryton, was travelling tutor to Erskine, and the two studied together
at Wittenberg under Melanchthon. The Melvilles were intimate with
Wishart; and Baldovy and Dun House were the resorts of other leading
spirits among the Reformers. In 1556 Knox was Erskine's guest when he
was preaching in the district, and his personal influence intensified
the attachment of the Melvilles to the cause to which they were already
committed.
Melville was only two years old when his father was killed fighting
among the Angus men on the field of Pinkie, a battle which made many
orphans; and in his twelfth year he lost his mother, when he was taken
by his eldest brother to Maryton Manse, and as tenderly cared for by the
minister and his wife as though he had been a child of their own. One of
the sons of the manse was James Melville, between whom and his 'Uncle
Andro' the most endeared affection sprang up. The two lived in each
other's lives and shared each other's work, alike as teachers in the two
principal Universities, and as leaders in the Council of the Church.
_Corque unum in duplici corpore et una anima_--so the elder, after the
younger's death, described their relationship.
Melville's scholarly bent showed itself early. 'He was a sicklie, tender
boy, and tuk pleasure in nathing sa meikle as his buik.' He began his
education in the Grammar School of Montrose, which had great repute, and
on leaving it he attended for two years the school in the same town,
founded by Erskine of Dun, for the teaching of Greek. It was in the
latter school that he learned the rudiments of Greek, in which he had
afterwards few equals anywhere, and none in Scotland. In 1559 Melville
entered the University of St. Andrews and joined St. Mary's College.
Aristotle's Works were the only text-books used; and Melville was the
only one in the University, whether student or professor, who could read
them in the original. He was a favourite of the Provost of his College,
John Douglas, who invited him often to his house and encouraged him in
his studies, and discerned in him the promise of distinction as a
scholar. 'He wad tak the boy betwix his legges at the fire in winter,
and blessing him say--"My sillie fatherless and motherless chyld, it's
ill to wit what God may mak of thee yet!"' Melville finished his
curriculum at St. Andrews in 1564, and left with the reputation of being
'the best philosopher, poet, and Grecian of any young maister in the
land.'
It was common at that time for Scottish students on leaving their own
Universities to seek, at the Continental seats of learning, a more
abundant education than their own country could afford. We shall see
that when Melville came to be at the head in succession of our two
principal Universities, he considerably modified this custom. He
conformed to it, however, in his own case, and the same year in which he
closed his course at St. Andrews left Scotland to prosecute his studies
abroad. The next decade was his Wander-jahre. He went first of all to
Paris, whose University was the most renowned in Europe. There was a
truce at the time between the Catholics and the Reformers in France; a
large measure of toleration was allowed by the Government, and the
principal Professors were Protestants. In Paris, Melville sat at the
feet of some of the most distinguished scholars of the day: he read
diligently in Greek literature; acquired a knowledge of Hebrew; and at
the same time studied Philosophy under Petrus Ramus, the great opponent
of Aristotelianism, becoming a follower of this daring innovator, whose
system he afterwards introduced in the Scottish Universities.
From Paris Melville went to Poitiers, where he studied jurisprudence and
was also employed as tutor in the college of St. Marceon. In the 'Diary'
of his nephew, who was a great literary impressionist, and whose pages
preserve for us the very 'form and pressure' of the scenes he describes,
many incidents are related of his Continental life which disclose his
character as a youth. During the third year of Melville's residence in
Poitiers the academic quiet of the town was broken by the clash of arms.
Civil war had broken out afresh in France, and Poitiers, which was a
Catholic town, held by the Duke of Guise, was invested by a Protestant
army under Coligny. Melville, as a foreigner and a Protestant, found
himself in a situation where he needed to use the greatest caution to
escape the danger to which he was exposed. When the siege began the
colleges were closed, and he was received into the family of a prominent
citizen as tutor to his boy. There was a small party of the soldiery
quartered in the house, and one day their corporal, who had observed
Melville at his devotions, challenged him as a Huguenot, and threatened
to deal with him by martial law as one who might betray the town. With a
courage and an adroitness which were native to him, he at once turned
round on his assailant and repudiated his imputations; and seizing on
some armour that was lying by, donned it, and going to the stables took
the best horse by the head, as if to join there and then the ranks of
the army of defence, when the corporal, fairly nonplussed by the
apparent vehemence of his loyalty, begged his forgiveness. He had no
more trouble of this kind, but he never felt secure of his liberty, and
it was a comfort to him to know that he had a good horse standing in the
stable by which, if it should come to the worst, he could make his
escape to Coligny's camp. During the siege his pupil, a bright boy, to
whom he had become deeply attached, was killed by a cannon-ball which
penetrated the wall of his room and struck him on the thigh. Melville
was in the house at the time, and on entering the room the dying boy
embraced him and passed away with the words of the Apostle on his
lips--[Greek: didaskale, ton dromon mou teteleka]--'Master, I have
finished my course.' 'That bern gaed never out of his hart.'
On the siege being raised, Melville left Poitiers for Geneva, footing it
all the way in the company of a few fellow-students. If he was sickly as
a child, he gathered vigour in his 'teens and grew up a manly youth. He
was of short stature and great agility, high-spirited, brave, the
cheeriest of companions, full of resource in emergencies, and with an
artful humour by which he made his escape from many a difficult
situation incident to Continental travel at the time. On the journeys
from town to town on the way to Geneva he held out better than any of
his comrades, stepping along with no impedimenta but his Hebrew Bible
which he had slung at his side--the same Bible which he afterwards
'clanked' down on the board before the King and Council in
Edinburgh,--the freshest of the company when the day's journey was
ended, so that he 'wad out and sight' the towns and villages
whithersoever they came while the others lay down 'lyk tired tykes.' On
reaching Geneva he and one of his fellow-travellers, who was a
Frenchman, presented themselves at the gates together, when they were
challenged by the guard. 'The ports of Genev wer tentilie keipit,
because of the troubles of France and multitud of strangers that cam.
Being thairfor inquyrit what they war, the Franche man his companion
answerit, "We ar puir scollars." But Mr. Andro, perceaving that they
haid na will of puir folks, being alreadie owerlaid thairwith, said,
"No, no, we ar nocht puir! [though he admitted afterwards that they had
'but a crown to the fore' between them]. We haiff alsmikle as will pey
for all we tak, sa lang as we tarie. We haiff letters from his
acquentance to Monsieur di Beza; let us deliver those, we crave na
fordar."'
In Geneva Melville received a warm welcome from Beza, who reigned there
in place of Calvin, and through his influence he at once obtained an
appointment to the chair of Humanity in the College. During his
residence in that city, which lasted for five years, he had the
opportunity of mingling with many of the first scholars of the age, and
of the leaders of the Reformed movement in Europe. After 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.