sufficient to make most authors repeat the attempt; but, besides this, the task of
Dr. M'Crie had already been chosen, of which his first great effort had only been
the commencement. The distinguished lights of the Scottish Reformation had
long stood arrayed before his view as successively demanding their due commemoration; and after having completed the first and best in the series, the
choice of the next was not a matter of difficulty. "If the love of pure religion,
rational liberty, and polite letters," he writes, "forms the basis of national
virtue and happiness, I know no individual, after her reformer, from whom
Scotland has received greater benefits, and to whom she owes a deeper debt
of gratitude and respect, than Andrew Melville." Upon this, therefore, he
had been employed for years, and towards the close of 1819 the "Life of Andrew Melville" was published. Such was the toil which this work occasioned him, that he was wont to say it had cost him "a hundred times more labour than the life of Knox." This will be apparent when we consider not
only the immense quantity of facts which such a narrative involved, but the difficulty of finding them, as they were no longer the broad, distinct, and widely-published statements which so largely enter into the history of our first
reformers. And yet, though the life of Melville is to the full as well written as that of Knox, and exhibits still greater learning and research, it never attained the same popularity. The cause of this is to be found in the subject itself. After the national hero has crossed the scene, all who follow in his path, be their deeds and merits what they may, must possess an inferior interest.
Besides this, Melville was not a reformer from Popery, the common enemy of
the Protestant Church, but from Episcopacy; and therefore, while the interest
of the event was mainly confined to presbyterian Scotland, it excited dislike in
England, while it awoke scarcely any sympathy in the continental reformed
churches. But will the work continue to be thus rated beneath its value?—we scarcely think so. The great question of centuries, the question of the
rights of the church in reference to its connection with the state, promises to
become more generally felt and more keenly agitated than ever ; and in this
important controversy, the opinions and example of Andrew Melville are likely
to assume their due weight. And where, in this case, will posterity be likely
to find a record better written than that of Dr. M'Crie? It may be, that before the present century has closed, his "Life of Andrew Melville" will be more widely perused and deeply considered than the author himself could have anticipated.
Calamities and afflictions of various kinds were now at hand to try the temper and purify the patience of the hitherto successful author. The perils by which the principle of church establishment was beset, and the prospect of further division among Christian communities, clouded his spirit with anxious forebodings for his was not a temper to rest satisfied that all should be well in his own day. Domestic sorrow was soon added to his public anxieties; for his amiable partner in life, who for the last six years had been an invalid, was removed from him by death in June, 1821. Soon afterwards his own health began to fail, in consequence of his intense application to study; and even his eyesight was so impaired with the poring of years over dim and difficult manuscripts, as to threaten total blindness. Cessation from labour and the recreation of travel were judged necessary for his recovery; and accordingly, in the summer of 1822, he made a short tour of two months to the continent, during which his studies were only changed, not suspended, and he returned home considerably
