# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Melville, Andrew (1545-1622)

​MELVILLE or MELVILL, ANDREW (1545–1622), Scottish presbyterian leader and scholar, youngest child of Richard Melvill (d. 1547) of Baldovie, Forfarshire, by his wife Gills, daughter of Thomas Abercrombie of Montrose, was born at Baldovie on 1 Aug. 1545. He is described as the ninth son, yet speaks in a letter of 1612 as having outlived his ‘fourteen brethren.’ The family was attached to the reformed religion. His father was killed at the battle of Pinkie, his mother died soon after, and he was brought up by his eldest brother, Richard (1522–1575), who had married Isabel Scrimgeour. This brother and two others, James and John, subsequently entered the reformed ministry. Andrew was educated first at the Montrose grammar ​school, and in 1559 entered St. Mary's College, St. Andrews; in the matriculation list his name is given as ‘Andreas Mailuile.’ His knowledge of Greek, ‘quhilk his maisters understood nocht,’ created wonder; he had gained it at Montrose (1557–9) under Pierre de Marsiliers, established there as a teacher by John Erskine [q. v.] of Dun. Since Melvill addresses George Buchanan (1506–1582) [q. v.] as ‘præceptori suo,’ McCrie thinks it possible that Buchanan may have given him ‘private instructions’ during visits to St. Andrews. There also McCrie places his introduction to Pietro Bizari [q. v.], who in 1565 addressed verses to Melvill as well as to Buchanan.
Having graduated at St. Andrews, he repaired to France in the autumn of 1564, reaching Paris from Dieppe after a roundabout and stormy voyage. He now attained great fluency in Greek, made acquirements in oriental languages, studied mathematics and law, and came under the direct influence of Peter Ramus, whose new methods of teaching he subsequently transplanted to Scotland. From Paris he proceeded in 1566 to Poitiers for further study of law. He was at once made regent in the college of St. Marceon; his skill in Latin verse and in classic oratory gave his college the advantage in literary contests with the rival college of St. Pivareau. Classes were broken up in 1568 during the siege of Poitiers by the Huguenots under Coligny. As a protestant, though not an obtrusive one, Melvill fell under suspicion of sympathy with the besiegers, but he proved his readiness to take part in the defence of the place. He left Poitiers, however, on the raising of the siege, and made his way with some difficulty to Geneva.
Beza received him with open arms, and he was placed forthwith in the vacant chair of humanity in the Genevan academy. Still young (twenty-three) he availed himself of every opportunity of study, frequenting the lectures of his colleagues. At Geneva as early as 1570 he met Joseph Scaliger and Francis Hottoman, who in 1572, after the massacre on St. Bartholomew's day, took up their abode in that city.
Melvill till 1572 did not correspond with his friends in Scotland; his home letters in that year brought him successive appeals, the earliest being from his nephew, James Melville (1556–1614) [q. v.], to devote his powers to raising the standard of education in his own country. In 1573 he published at Basle his first volume of Latin verse, and in the same year obtained his demission from the Genevan Academy. In the spring of 1574 he left Geneva, carrying a commendatory letter from Beza to the Scottish general assembly. At Paris he conducted for some days a public discussion in the Jesuits' College. Alarmed by some words of James Beaton (1517–1603) [q. v.], the refugee archbishop of Glasgow, he left Paris on 30 May 1573, and proceeding by Dieppe, Rye, and London, reached Edinburgh early in July.
Declining a post in the household of the regent, James Douglas, fourth earl of Morton [q. v.], for which he was recommended by Buchanan, Melvill stayed three months with his brother Richard at Baldovie, directing the studies of his nephew James, whom his father committed henceforth wholly to his charge. In the autumn of 1574 he was appointed John Davidson's successor as head of the college of Glasgow which had been closed since Davidson's death in 1572. After spending a couple of days at Stirling, where he was introduced to the youthful James VI, and had some consultation with Buchanan, Melvill settled in Glasgow early in November 1574.
With his appointment ‘the literary history of the university of Glasgow properly commences’ (McCrie). His plan was twofold, the introduction of an enlarged curriculum, extending over six years, and the training of ‘regents,’ to whom he might delegate the permanent conduct of special branches of study. Within six years he established four chairs in languages, science, and philosophy, reserving divinity to the principal. To the principalship was annexed on 13 July 1577 the charge of Govan, near Glasgow, where Melvill preached every Sunday. In the same year a royal charter, the ‘nova erectio,’ confirmed his plan of studies.
Meanwhile Melvill was an active leader in ecclesiastical affairs, and a prime mover in the steps by which the organisation of the Scottish church was definitely cast in a presbyterian mould. Spotiswood (his pupil) represents him as an iconoclast, ascribing to him the design of demolishing the cathedral of Glasgow as a monument of idolatry. This seems a complete misapprehension. Even the outbreak of popular iconoclasm in the early days of Knox was directed only against images and monasteries. The reforming policy was to utilise all churches for protestant worship, the larger ones being sometimes divided for the accommodation of several congregations. Melvill's attack was directed against the remaining forms of episcopacy. The first ‘book of discipline’ (1561) had permitted a quasi-episcopacy in the shape of ‘superintendents.’ The convention of Leith (1572) had re-established the hierarchy, though with limited powers. Melvill was appointed (March 1575) on the ​general assembly's committee for drafting a scheme of church government, which was set forth in the second ‘book of discipline,’ sanctioned by the general assembly (though not by the state) in 1581. His prominence as an ecclesiastical leader is shown by his being selected by the regent Morton in October 1577 as the first of three deputies to a proposed general council of protestants at Magdeburg. On 24 April 1578 he was for the first time elected moderator of the general assembly.
The second ‘book of discipline’ discarded every vestige of prelacy, set aside patronage, placed ordination in the hands of the eldership, and established a gradation of church courts. To church courts was assigned a jurisdiction independent of the civil magistrate. On the one hand, the exercise of civil jurisdiction was forbidden to the clergy; on the other, the church court was entitled to instruct the civil magistrate in the exercise of his jurisdiction, according to the divine word. It did not, however, complete the development of the Scottish ‘presbytery,’ for it recognised no intermediate court between the eldership of the particular congregation and the assembly of the province; though it pointed the way to ‘presbyteries’ by allowing three or four contiguous congregations to have an eldership in common. Melvill's ecclesiastical polity has been treated as the fruit of his experience of foreign protestantism, especially in Geneva. As regards his grasp of principles this is true. But he did not bring with him from abroad any rigid model to be followed, and the ultimate shape of Scottish presbyterianism was a native growth.
Melvill's ideas of Scottish university reform were not limited to Glasgow. In 1575 he assisted Alexander Arbuthnot (1538–1583) [q. v.], principal of King's College, Aberdeen, in the formation of a new constitution for that university. In 1578 he was appointed by the Scottish parliament a commissioner for the visitation of St. Andrews, the richest and most frequented of the Scottish universities. The plan for its reformation (ratified 11 Nov. 1579) was mainly his; he had the advantage here of working on the lines of a prior scheme drawn up in 1563 by George Buchanan (1506–1582) [q. v.], on which, however, he materially improved. Of the three colleges at St. Andrews, St. Mary's, or the New College (begun 1532, finished 1552), was henceforth reserved for a four years' course of theological studies under five professors.
In October 1580 a royal letter invited the concurrence of the assembly in the translation of Melvill to St. Andrews as principal of St. Mary's. Melvill accepted the appointment in November. Chairs at St. Andrews were at once offered, but in vain, to Thomas Cartwright (1535–1603) [q. v.] and Walter Travers (see letter in Fuller, Church Hist. bk. ix. p. 215; internal evidence proves the date). Taking with him his nephew James as professor of oriental languages, Melvill began his work at St. Andrews in December 1580. The new arrangements had displaced several men who had grievances not easily satisfied. The professors of St. Leonard's College delivered inflammatory lectures in fierce defence of the authority of Aristotle, ‘owirharled’ by Melvill in the name of the new learning. In return he promoted the real study of Aristotle, created a taste for Greek letters, and in philosophy, as in biblical knowledge, superseded the second-hand methods of an effete scholasticism. In September 1581 he paid a visit in Edinburgh with other friends to George Buchanan, whose history was then in the press. Buchanan showed them the epistle dedicatory to the king, which Melvill thought ‘obscure in sum places.’ Buchanan seems to have accepted Melvill's corrections.
At the general assembly which met at Edinburgh in October 1581, Melvill exhibited fifteen articles of libel against Robert Montgomery (d. 1609) [q. v.], who had accepted from Esmé Stuart, first duke of Lennox [q. v.], the see of Glasgow, the revenues, except a small pension, going to Lennox himself. It was this kind of simoniacal arrangement which gave rise to the name of ‘tulchan’ bishops. The prosecution of Montgomery was resumed at the general assembly which met at St. Andrews, in St. Mary's College, on 24 April 1582, Melvill being moderator. In the face of a royal inhibition, Montgomery was tried, convicted on eight articles, and would have been excommunicated but for his temporary submission. As the submission did not last, the assembly's order for excommunication was carried out by John Davidson (1549?–1603) [q. v.] at Liberton, near Edinburgh. The assembly and the court were now at open war. A special meeting of assembly was convened at Edinburgh on 27 June. Melvill, in his opening sermon, denounced the doctrine of the ecclesiastical supremacy of the crown. He was retained as moderator, and appointed on a commission to wait upon James VI at Perth with a remonstrance and petition. His relatives urged the danger of his errand, but Melvill was fearless. He presented the remonstrance to the king in council. ‘Wha,’ exclaimed Arran, ‘dar subscryve thir treasonable articles?’ Melvill replied, ‘We dar and will,’ and immediately subscribed, followed by the other commissioners. ​By the ‘raid of Ruthven’ (22 Aug. 1582) Lennox and James Stewart, earl of Arran [q. v.], were dislodged, and the party whose ecclesiastical policy was directed by Melvill grasped for a short season the reins of power. Seven of the bishops were ordered by the general assembly in October to be tried before presbyteries; Melvill and Smeton were appointed to examine into the case of Adam Bothwell [q. v.], bishop of Orkney. But on 27 June 1583 James escaped from the hands of the confederated lords, and the bishops were again protected.
In January 1584 Robert Browne [q. v.], the English separatist, arrived at Dundee from Middelburg with a handful of his followers. Making his way to St. Andrews, he obtained from Melvill a commendatory letter to James Lawson [q. v.], minister of St. Giles's, Edinburgh, and settled in the Canongate for a short time, but after quarrelling with the Edinburgh presbytery, returned to England.
Melvill, on 15 Feb. 1584, was summoned before the privy council at Edinburgh to answer for alleged treason in a fast sermon at St. Andrews in June previous. He appeared on 17 Feb. and explained his language, a strong and perhaps ambiguous outcome of his favourite doctrine of the independence of the church. There was no ground for charging him with sedition, nevertheless the privy council determined to proceed with his trial. Next day he read a formal protest against the action of the council in a spiritual matter, claiming to be tried, in the first instance, by an ecclesiastical court at St. Andrews, the scene of the alleged offence. Order was made for his imprisonment in Edinburgh Castle for contempt of court. His friends kept him in hiding. When the place of his proposed incarceration was changed to Blackness Castle, Linlithgowshire, they assisted him to escape, with his brother Roger, to Berwick, where he joined the banished lords of the Ruthven raid. In the following May the royal supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs was established, and the jurisdiction of bishops restored, while Adamson, archbishop of St. Andrew's, suppressed the teaching of theology at St. Mary's College.
From Berwick, in June, Melvill proceeded to London, accompanied by Patrick Forbes (1564–1635) [q. v.], and was soon joined by a number of ministers of his party in flight from Scotland. At the court of Elizabeth he did his best to win friends for the Scottish presbyterians. He was well received at Oxford and Cambridge in July, both by the puritan leaders Rainolds and Whitaker, and by men of letters. Returning to London, he read a Latin lecture on Genesis at the chapel in the Tower, which was exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, and placed by its lieutenant at the disposal of the Scottish ministers. Arran's fall, a preliminary to James's English alliance, led to the return to Scotland of Melvill and his friends. On 4 Nov. 1585, at Stirling, the confederated lords became once more masters of the situation.
The Linlithgow parliament of December 1585 restored the ‘peregrine’ ministers to their places, but left untouched the reactionary measures of the previous year. A personal contest between James and the presbyterian ministers, headed by Melvill, produced only certain royal ‘explanations’ of the obnoxious acts. In February 1586 a compromise with episcopacy was agreed on between the more moderate ministers and members of the privy council. At the meeting of the synod of Fife, in April, Adamson was arraigned by James Melvill, evidently acting in concert with his uncle, and a sentence of excommunication was passed, in a manner ‘precipitant and irregular’ (MCCRIE). The general assembly in May removed the excommunication and made terms with Adamson; its decree formally divided the kingdom into provincial synods and presbyteries. James ordered Melvill to Baldovie during pleasure, and presently sent him (26 May) on a mission to jesuits north of the Tay. But during the autumn he resumed his academic labours at St. Mary's, although under injunction not to preach except in Latin. He acted as a ruling elder in the kirk-session of St. Andrews. In 1590 he was placed at the head of the university of St. Andrews as its rector.
In June 1587 Melvill was moderator of the general assembly at Edinburgh. At the end of the month James visited St. Mary's College with Du Bartas, the French poet, commanded a lecture from Melvill, and heard an oration by Adamson in support of prelacy. Melvill answered Adamson with great tactical skill, proving his arguments to be derived from Roman catholic authorities. As moderator he convened a special meeting of the general assembly for 6 Feb. 1588, in view of the threatened expedition of the Spanish Armada. James resented the interference. A party, headed by George Gordon, sixth earl of Huntly [q. v.], urged him to open the Scottish ports to the Armada, but a deputation from the assembly, with Melvill's pupil Robert Bruce (1554–1631) [q. v.] as moderator, steadied his purpose; a bond of national defence against Spain was promoted by the presbyterian clergy.
At the coronation of the queen on Sunday, 17 May 1590, only presbyterian ministers offi​ciated, Melvill reciting a Latin poem, which was published by royal command. When Adamson was deposed by the assembly and neglected by James, Melvill met his necessities from his own purse, and by a contribution from his friends. At the same time he insisted on Adamson's recantation as the condition of release from excommunication. Adamson's death (19 Feb. 1592) removed the ablest advocate of episcopacy. The parliament in June 1592 ratified the presbyterian system, confirming, however, the rights of patrons, and not affecting the civil status of bishops, including their right to sit in parliament. Melvill was again moderator of the general assembly at Edinburgh in May 1594. Huntly and other catholic peers left Scotland in 1595, and Melvill used every means in his power to prevent their return. In August 1596 he forced himself into a meeting of the privy council at Falkland to protest against Huntly's proposals. He was excluded, but made himself the spokesman of a deputation to the king in the following month, when he plucked James by the sleeve, calling him ‘Gods sillie vassall,’ claimed the character of loyal patriotism for the policy of his party, and extorted a promise that the demands of the church should be respected.
The tide now turned against the presbyterian cause. The general assembly convened by James at Perth for 28 Feb. 1597 adopted thirteen articles which gave new power to the king in ecclesiastical affairs, and forbade the clergy to preach on matters of state. Melvill was not present, and his party unsuccessfully challenged the legality of the assembly. In June 1597 James made a visitation of St. Andrews University. Melvill was deprived of the rectorship, a council nominated by the king was entrusted with the government of the university, and all holders of chairs, not being pastors, were prohibited from sitting in church courts, except that one representative (whose election was carefully guarded) was given to the university in the general assembly. Notwithstanding this, Melvill presented himself at the general assembly at Dundee in March 1598. James personally bade him withdraw, and he was compelled to leave the town. By way of amends he was made dean of the faculty of theology in the summer of 1599. He maintained the leadership of his party by assisting at extra-judicial meetings of clergy. One of the most important of these was the conference held at Holyrood House, November 1599, in James's presence, on the admission of bishops to parliament. His personal controversies with James were not limited to verbal altercation. In 1599 James printed the first edition of the ‘Basilicon Doron,’ consisting of only seven copies. One of them came into Melvill's hands through Sir James Sempill. He extracted propositions from it, and caused them to be censured by the synod of Fife. At Montrose, in March 1600, he again unsuccessfully claimed his right to sit in the assembly; he appears, however, to have been admitted to the assembly of May 1601 at Burntisland. In June 1602, in a sermon at St. Andrews, he condemned the attitude of some of the clergy, and was ordered (11 July) to confine himself within the precincts of his college.
Melvill hailed the accession of James to the English throne with a series of odes, in which he addressed him as ‘Scotangle princeps, optime principum.’ He was in favour of a legislative union of the two kingdoms. In 1605 nine presbyteries sent their representatives to Aberdeen, and after constituting the general assembly in defiance of the king's messenger adjourned to 28 Sept. Severe measures were taken with the leaders of this meeting, in whose behalf and in behalf of the right of free assembly, Melvill headed a protest (drafted by Patrick Simson) which was offered to the parliament at Perth in August 1606. He was summoned, with his nephew and six other ministers, to appear in London before 15 Sept.
He reached London by 25 Aug.; John Gordon [q. v.], dean of Salisbury, had instructions for him. The ministers were lodged at Kingston-on-Thames, and received at Hampton Court on 20, 22, and 23 Sept. Melvill, who made two uncompromising speeches, each of nearly an hour's length, on behalf of the freedom of assemblies, turned upon the Scottish lord advocate (Thomas Hamilton, afterwards Earl of Melrose [q. v.]), and vituperated him in a Greek phrase. ‘By God,’ said James, ‘it is the devil's name in the Revelation.’ After some further parleying, Melvill and his friends were required to attend in the Chapel Royal on Sunday, 28 Sept. Melvill, returning from this service to his lodging, penned a bitter Latin epigram on the accessories of Anglican worship. For this he was brought before the English privy council at Whitehall on 10 Nov. Here he turned the tables upon Archbishop Bancroft, by producing his former publication against James's title to the English crown; and seizing the white sleeves of Bancroft's rochet, he called them ‘Romish rags.’ At length he was removed, and placed in the custody of John Overal, D.D. [q. v.], then dean of St. Paul's. On 9 March 1607 he was nominally transferred to the custody of Bilson, bishop of Winchester, but permitted to be at large and consort ​with his Scottish brethren. He was again summoned to the privy council at Whitehall on 26 April, and once more taxed with his epigram. He broke forth into personal and unsparing invective directed against members of the council, lay and clerical. He was sent by water to the Tower. A royal commission on 16 June declared the principalship of St. Mary's College vacant. His confinement was solitary; pen, ink, and paper were forbidden him; he covered the walls of his chamber with Latin verses, scratched with the tongue of his shoe-buckle.
Not till April 1608 was some relaxation allowed, through the good offices of Sir James Sempill. He was indulged with the company of a young nephew and great-nephew, to whom he gave tuition. Meanwhile the authorities of La Rochelle had applied to James for his removal thither as professor of divinity in their college, but the French court had interfered. Melvill at the end of 1608 addressed a copy of conciliatory verses to James, and an apologetic letter to the privy council, on the advice of Archbishop Spotiswood. Among his friendly visitors were Isaac Casaubon [q. v.] and Joseph Hall [q. v.], afterwards bishop of Norwich. He kept up a correspondence with Scotland and with foreign protestants. At length his release was obtained, after several months' negotiation, by Henri de la Tour, duc de Bouillon (d. 1623, aged 67), who sought his services for the university of Sédan within his principality. Just before his removal he was seized with fever, and permitted to recruit his health in the neighbourhood of London. He embarked for France from the Tower on 19 April 1611.
By Rouen and Paris Melvill travelled to Sédan, and was installed in the chair of biblical theology, the department of systematic divinity being retained by Daniel Tilenus (1563–1633), who had previously taught both branches. Tilenus was unpopular, and many students had withdrawn to Saumur. Melvill did not find his prospects inviting. In November 1612 he visited Grenoble, on the invitation of De Barsac, treasurer of the parlement of Dauphiné, who offered him a salary to educate his sons, either privately or at the university of Dié. He soon, however, returned to Sédan; but the situation was not made happier by a theological difference with Tilenus, who, compelled to resign, came to England in 1620, and gratified James by writing against the presbyterianism of Scotland.
Melvill, who appears to have been of small stature, had excellent health till 1612, excepting occasional attacks of gravel; he had never used spectacles. In 1616 he speaks of his gout; by 1620 his health was broken. He died at Sédan in 1622; the exact date has not been ascertained. He was unmarried. His faults lay on the surface, but they disqualified him from being a good leader. His ideas were patriotic and statesmanlike, but his action was too little under restraint. Spotiswood spoke of him as ‘a blast;’ he roused his nation to great issues, heedless of immediate consequences. King James was right in saying that his heart was in his mouth. Unprovoked he was generous, and could be sympathising and even gentle, yet to his closest intimates he was always the candid friend. His letters to his nephew in 1608 on the subject of a second marriage are exceedingly sensible, but there is a touch of asperity in the manner which robs the advice of all suasiveness. In controversy he could never conciliate; his impetuous eloquence was soon roused, when he poured forth without calculation a fierce stream of mordant invective. His polemical epigrams, always exquisite in their form, were corrosive in matter. Yet his spirit was never wanting in dignity, and under reverses he was ‘patient, constant, and courageous’ (Grub). Of self-seeking he was entirely free.
As a reformer of the Scottish universities Melvill showed real constructive power, and his work was permanent. Foreigners were for the first time attracted to St. Andrews as a seat of liberal learning, others were drawn to Glasgow and Edinburgh. The European repute of the Scottish universities begins with Melvill.
The part which he played in the development of the framework of presbyterianism exhibits similar qualities. Both by helping to perfect its machinery and by inspiring enthusiasm for its polity, he did much to mould that Scottish type of presbyterianism which is often taken as synonymous with presbyterianism itself. But with Melvill the triumph of one form of church government over another was not the main business. His prime object was to make religion, as he understood it, a matter of popular concern, and he judged forms as they appeared to him to help or hinder that result. Theologian as he was, his conception of religion was, in the broad sense, ethical, Christianity being to him a divine guide of conduct for individuals and for nations. Of religious sentimentalism there is no trace (as McCrie has noticed) even in his most confidential correspondence; his life was the outcome of solid and virile conviction, but as regards his personal experiences in religion he observes a manly reticence.
Isaac Walton ranks Melvill as a Latin ​poet next to Buchanan. He had more poetic genius than Buchanan, with greater ease and spontaneity. But most of his pieces were fugitive, having a motive quite apart from that of literary fame, and he attempted no great work. His ‘Carmen Mosis’ takes the highest place among Latin paraphrases of scriptural themes. Of his printed poetical pieces the following list is corrected from McCrie: 1. ‘Carmen Mosis,’ &c., Basel, 1573, 8vo; reprinted with others of his pieces in ‘Delitiæ Poetarum Scotorum,’ &c., Amst., 1637, 12mo, vol. ii. 2. ‘Jvlii Cæsaris Scaligeri Poemata,’ &c., Geneva, 1575, 8vo (commendatory epigrams by Melvill). 3. ‘Stephaniskion. Ad Scotiæ Regem, habitum in Coronatione Reginæ,’ &c., Edinb., 1590, 4to; reprinted in ‘Papers relating to the Marriage of King James VI,’ &c. (Bannatyne Club), Edinb., 1828, 4to. 4. ‘Carmina Sacra duo,’ &c., Geneva, 1590, 12mo (contains his ‘Poetica Paraphrasis Cantici Canticorum’). 5. ‘Principis Scoti-Britannorvm Natalia,’ &c., Edinb., 1594, 4to; also the Hague, 1594, 4to. 6. ‘Inscriptiones Historicæ Regvm Scotorvm … Ioh. Ionstono … Authore … Præfixus est Gathelvs, sive de Gentis Origine Fragmentum, Andreæ Melvini,’ &c., Amst., 1602, 4to. 7. ‘In Obitvm Johannis Wallasii,’ &c., Leyden, 1603, 4to (several poems by Melvill). 8. ‘Pro supplici Evangelicorum Ministrorum in Anglia … Apologia, sive Anti-Tami-Cami-Categoria,’ &c. [? 1604]; reprinted in Calderwood's ‘Parasynagma Perthense,’ &c. [Edinb.], 1620, 4to; and in his ‘Altare Damascenum,’ 1623, 4to. A reply was written by the poet George Herbert [q. v.] 9. ‘Sidera Veteris Ævi,’ &c., Saumur, 1611, 4to (by John Johnston; contains two poems by Melvill). 10. ‘Comment. in Apost. Acta M. Joannis Malcolmi,’ &c., Middelburg, 1615 (verses by Melvill prefixed). 11. ‘Duellum Poeticum contendentibus G. Eglisemmio,’ &c., Lond. 1618, 8vo (prints and attacks Melvill's ‘Cavillum in Aram Regiam,’ the epigram on the Chapel Royal). 12. Sir James Sempill's ‘Sacriledge Sacredly Handled,’ &c., Lond., 1619, 4to, has three epigrams by Melvill. 13. ‘Viri clarissimi A. Melvini Musæ,’ &c. [Edinb.], 1620, 4to (the appended Life of Adamson, &c., are not by Melvill). 14. ‘Ad Serenissimvm Jacobvm Primvm … Libellus Supplex,’ &c., Lond. 1645, 8vo, by James Melvill, has his uncle's epitaph for him in Latin verse. 15. ‘Atlas Major,’ &c., Amst., J. Blaeu, 1662, fol. vol. vi. (contains ‘Andreæ Melvini Scotiæ Topographia’). 16. Koelman's ‘De Diebus Festis,’ &c., Utrecht, 1693, has five poems ‘ex Musis Andreæ Melvini.’ Besides these, a Latin paraphrase of certain psalms was printed by Melvill in 1609, while in the Tower, but no copy is known. In Harl. MSS. 6947 (9) is a ‘Paraphrasis Epistolæ ad Hebræos Andreæ Melvini.’ Other Latin verses are in the Sempill papers (among the archives of the church of Scotland), and in a collection in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. McCrie mentions as generally ascribed to Melvill, ‘Nescimus qvid vesper servs vehat. Satyra Menippæa,’ &c., 1619, 4to, 1620, 4to; this, according to Lowndes, is by Gaspar Scioppius.
Among his prose publications McCrie mentions: 1. ‘Theses Theologicæ de Libero Arbitrio,’ &c., Edinb. 1597, 4to. 2. ‘Scholastica Diatriba de Rebvs Divinis,’ &c., Edinb. 1599, 4to; these two are mere topics for academic disputations. 3. ‘Lusus Poetici,’ &c., Edinb. 1605, 4to, by David Hume (1560?–1630?) [q. v.], has four letters by Melvill. 4. ‘De Adiaphoris. Scoti tou tychontos Aphorismi,’ &c., 1622, 12mo (against conformity to the ceremonies). 5. ‘Commentarius in Divinam Pauli Epistolam ad Romanos,’ &c., Edinb., 1850, 8vo (edited for the Wodrow Society by W. Lindsay Alexander, D.D., from a transcript by Daniel Demetrius, finished at St. Andrews on 26 July 1601). His ‘Answer to the Declaration of certain Intentions set out in the King's Name … 7th of Feb. 1585,’ was circulated in manuscript, and possibly printed. His ‘Answer to Downham's Sermon,’ 1608, was widely circulated in manuscript. In the library of Trinity College, Dublin, is a manuscript ‘A. Melvinus in cap. 4 Danielis.’ To these must be added the manuscript collection of his Latin letters (1608–13) to James Melvill, in the Edinburgh University Library, and the manuscript collection of his letters (1612–16) to Robert Durie of Leyden, in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. An answer to Tilenus, ‘Scoti tou tychontos Paraclesis contra Dan. Tileni Silesii Parænesin,’ &c., 1622, is often ascribed to Melvill, but is by Sempill. McCrie spells the name Melville, and this form occurs in some contemporary documents relating to members of the family. No instance is produced of the use of this spelling by the reformer himself. He writes himself Melvine (1610), Meluill (1616), and Melvin (1617); in Latin invariably Melvinus. His nephew writes of him indifferently as ‘Andro Meluill’ and ‘Andro Meluin.’
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