Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3a.pdf/410

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
MEL
374
MEL

his exile was voluntary. But in the mean time, through the influence of Arran, several "black" acts were launched against the church, and numerous ministers were forced out of the country. Many noblemen were exiled too—but at a critical juncture they returned in strength, and Arran fled. Melville came back also after an absence of twenty months. On his return to St. Andrews, he heartily engaged again in the defence of the liberties of the church. For the part he took in the trial of Adamson he was suspended from his office as principal, and charged to confine himself to the north of the 'fay. The suspension, however, was not of long continuance. At the return of the king from Denmark with his youthful bride, Melville, who had had only two days' notice, pronounced an elegant Latin poem at the queen's coronation at Holyrood, which was published next day under the title of Stephaniskion. Nos talia non possumus, said Scaliger when he read it; Lipsius was no less warm in his eulogy. An act of parliament was passed in 1592 ratifying the form of government for which Melville had so strenuously contended, and giving legal sanction to the larger portion of the Second Book of Discipline. In 1590 Melville was elected rector of the university, and held the high office by re-election for a number of years. During the insurrection of Huntly and the popish lords, the king's dissimulation had become very apparent. Melville had several interviews with him, and on one occasion when his majesty was very reluctant to listen, the minister took hold of his sleeve and calling him "God's silly vassal," addressed to him a few words of plain-spoken patriotic honesty. All secret and open attempts to impose episcopacy on the church Melville continued, without compromise and at all hazards, to resist. Advantage was taken of a tumult in Edinburgh to renew the designs of the court against the freedom of the church; policy of every kind was employed, and the stratagem so far succeeded. Melville saw the king more than once, and on one occasion his nephew the diarist says—"They heckled on till all the house and close baith heard, meikle of a large houre."

Melville had now become obnoxious to king and court, being regarded as the grand obstacle to the success of their plots and innovations. Inquisition was made as to his sayings and doings at the college, but nothing palpable could be found against him. At length, however, in defect of proof, he was by mere order of the king confined to the college. Yet the treatment he had received did not prevent him soon after writing a Latin ode in honour of his majesty, on the accession of James to the English throne. But the restless conspiracy of the court to restore episcopacy still went on, and Melville was still the stout defender. As a last resort it was resolved to remove him, and he and some other ministers were in 1606 summoned up to London. They were appointed to meet the king at Hampton court. Many of the dignitaries of the English church were present. Melville was the spokesman for himself and the seven exiles; the royal pedant catechised and reprimanded them, as they persisted in asking a free assembly. But Melville afterwards enraged the king by writing some verses on the furniture of the royal chapel, and he was summoned before the privy council Bancroft, archbishop of Canterbury, was present, and declared that the offence amounted to treason. "My lord," replied the culprit, "Andrew Melville never was a traitor. But, my lord, there was one Richard Bancroft, who during the life of the late queen, wrote a treatise against his majesty's title to the crown of England," producing the book from his pocket. Bancroft was at once thrown into confusion, Melville waxed the warmer, and laying hold of his lawn sleeves styled them in passing "Romish rags." he was found guilty of scandalum magnatum, and handed over to the keeping of the dean of St. Paul's. Then in March, 1607, he was removed to the house of the bishop of Winchester, and after another appearance he was committed to the Tower by a court which certainly had no jurisdiction over him. His principality was at the same time taken from him. He consoled himself in his confinement by writing verses, and by engraving many of them on the walls of his cell with the tongue of a shoe-buckle. In Melville's absence the designs of the court triumphed, and episcopacy was established. During his confinement, which lasted four years, he was visited by many persons of rank and learning, and by such men as Cameron and Casaubon. At the request of the duke de Bouillon, he was at length liberated, and at once set out for France to occupy a chair in the protestant university of Sedan. He arrived at Sedan in 1611, and entered at once upon his duties as theological professor, refuting the Arminianism of Tilenus one of his colleagues, and yet, as in the ardour of youth composing a beautiful epithalamium on the nuptials of a daughter of the ducal house. But his health, which had been seriously impaired by his confinement in the Tower, failed in 1620, and he died at Sedan in 1622, at the advanced age of seventy-seven.

Melville was a man of energy and decision. Not a hair's breadth would he move from the path of duty. He knew not danger, but laughed at the "shaking of the spear;" opposition only encouraged him, and the persecution he underwent whetted his tongue and ruffled his temper. Inflexible and hard as he was, he had no little fire in his nature, but he had nothing of the fickleness often linked with impetuosity. He spoke as he thought, no matter in whose presence he was placed. In polite literature he had few equals, and in the composition of Latin poetry no superior. He had a chief share in the revival of the study of classical literature, and his reform of the two universities brought foreign students into Scotland. His exertions on behalf of the polity of the national church have left their impress on it and on the large bodies which have seceded from it. Melville ranks next to Knox as a reformer and national benefactor.—J. E.

* MELVILLE, G. Whyte, novelist, was born in London, and educated at Eton. Lieutenant and captain in the Coldstream guards, and lieutenant-colonel of Turkish cavalry during the Crimean war, he has written several novels, most of them contributed to Fraser's Magazine, and generally descriptive of contemporary English society. "Digby Grand," 1853; "General Bounce," 1855; "The Interpreter," 1858; "Holmby House," 1860—the last a striking tale of the Great Rebellion period; and several others. Mr. Melville's fictions have the vivacity of Theodore Hook's, and display the same knowledge of life and society, but with more both of reflectiveness and of pathetic power. In 1850 Mr. Melville published a meritorious translation of the Odes of Horace into English verse.—F. E.

* MELVILL, Henry, B.D., one of the most eloquent preachers of the English church, was born at Pendennis castle, Cornwall, in 1798. He was the son of the late Philip Melvill, Esq., distinguished in the war with Hyder Ali, and afterwards governor of Pendennis castle; one of his brothers was the late Sir J. C. Melvill, secretary to the East India Company. He received his early education at Falmouth; his later at St. John's college, Cambridge, where he was second wrangler in 1821, and became a fellow and tutor of St. Peter's. Entering the church, he left the university to become minister of Camden Road chapel, Camberwell, then a proprietary chapel belonging to his brother-in-law, Mr. Kemble. There he remained for many years, very active in his sphere of parochial duty, and acquiring great popularity by his eloquence as a preacher. His earlier pulpit style was modelled perhaps on that of Dr. Chalmers. In 1843 he was appointed principal of the then East India Company's college at Haileybury, a post which he retained until the dissolution of the establishment, when the government of India was transferred from the company to the crown. In 1840 he had been appointed chaplain of the Tower, in 1853 he became a chaplain in ordinary to the queen, and in 1856 a canon residentiary of St. Paul's. For several years he was Tuesday morning lecturer at St. Margaret's, Lothbury, delivering what is commonly called the "golden lecture." Mr. Melvill has never conspicuously attached himself to any of the great parties which divide the Church of England. He has published at various times several volumes of sermons, &c.—F. E.

MELVILLE, Henry Dundas, first viscount, an eminent statesman, was the youngest son of Robert Dundas of Arniston, a cadet of the old and influential house of Dundas of Dundas. The Arniston branch of the family had acquired great celebrity in the legal profession; three of them were judges, while the father and elder brother of Lord Melville held in succession the important office of president of the Scotch court of session, and his nephew was chief baron of the exchequer. After completing his education at the high school and university of Edinburgh, Henry Dundas commenced the study of what might be called the hereditary profession of his family, and was admitted a member of the faculty of advocates in 1763. His talents and persevering application to business, combined with his family influence, soon brought him into notice. His earliest oratorical displays were made in the general assembly of the Church of Scotland, where his talents were cordially appreciated, and gave promise of his future distinction. He made rapid progress in professional advancement, and having passed through the pre-