n to attend her Universities. A few years
after Melville went to St. Andrews, names of students from all parts of
the Continent began to appear on the matriculation registers, chiefly of
St. Andrews, but of the other Universities as well. He gave an impetus
to learning not only within academic circles, but throughout the
country, as was shown in the great increase in the production of books
in all branches of literature and science. The period enriched the
nation with no names of literary genius, but the general intellectual
activity of the country made a great advance, Melville himself left no
permanent contribution to literature--his hands were too full of public
cares for that; and his entire literary remains consist of sacred poems
and fugitive pieces of verse in Latin. But he was very ready with his
pen, and served as a kind of unofficial poet-laureate. It is a curious
fact that on every occasion in the King's reign that called for
celebration, even at those times when Melville was on the worst terms
with James, an appropriate ode was forthcoming. He was a clever
satirist, and it was a lampoon which he wrote on a sermon in the Royal
Chapel at Hampton Court that was made the pretext for depriving him of
his liberty.

Such were Melville's services to education and learning. Through all the
stormy controversies into which he was plunged he never forsook his
first love, but continued his work in our Universities up to the close
of his career in Scotland.

CHAPTER IV

THE 'DINGING DOWN' OF THE BISHOPS--MELVILLE AND MORTON

'Who never looks on man
Fearful and wan,
But firmly trusts in God.'

HENRY VAUGHAN.

We must go back to the year of Melville's return home, 1574, in order
that we may review the supreme labours of his life. It was a time of
confusion: Knox was dead, and the Church needed a leader to shape its
discipline and policy in order to conserve the fruits of the Reformer's
work. Two years before Melville's return, viz. in 1572, the electroplate
Episcopacy--the Tulchan[4] Bishops--had been imposed on the Church by
the Regent Morton. Up to this time the constitution of the Church had
been purely Presbyterian. There was no office superior to that of the
minister of a congregation. The Superintendents were only ministers, or
elders appointed provisionally by the General Assembly, to whom such
presbyterial functions were delegated as the exigencies of the Church
req