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