Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/875

Rh M E L M E L 84:5 of Notre Dame formerly belonged to a nunnery, now occupied by a central house of detention for twelve hundred prisoners. On the apse of the church of St Aspais may be seen a modern medallion in bronze, the work of the sculptor Chapu, representing Joan of Arc as the liberator of Melun. The population in 1881 was 12,145. Me.lun is a very ancient town, and has played an important part in history. As early as the time of Caesar s Gallic wars it was taken possession of by his lieutenant Labieims, in order to attack Lntetia with greater ease by the right bank of the Seine. It was pillaged by the Normans, and afterwards became the favourite residence of the first kings of the race of Capet ; Robert and Philip I. both died there. During the Hundred Years War Melun was given up by Jeanne of Navarre to her brother, Charles the Bad, but was retaken by the dauphin Charles and Dnguesclin. In 1420 it made an heroic defence against Henry V. of England and his ally the duke of Bur gundy. Ten years later the people of Melun, with the help of Joan of Arc, drove out the English. It was occupied by the League in 1589, and retaken by Henry IV. in the following year. Jacques Amyot was born there in 1504. MELVILLE, HENRY DUNDAS, VISCOUNT (1741-1811), younger son of the Right Honourable Robert Dundas, lord president of the Scottish court of session, was born at Edinburgh in 1741, ani was educated at the high school and university there. Becoming member of the faculty of advocates in 17G3, he soon acquired a leading position at the bar. After his appointment as lord advocate in 1775, he gradually relinquished his legal practice to devote his attention more exclusively to public business. On entering parliament in 1774, he had joined the party of Lord North, and, notwithstanding his provincial dialect and ungraceful manner, he soon distinguished himself in the debates by his clear and argumentative speeches. After holding sub ordinate offices under the marquis of Lansdowne and Pitt, he in 1791 entered the cabinet as home secretary. From 1794 to 1801 he was secretary at war under Pitt, who conceived for him a special friendship. In 1802 he was elevated to the peerage as Viscount Melville and Baron Dunira. Under Pitt in 1804 he again entered office as first lord of the admiralty, when he introduced numerous improvements in the details of the department. His im peachment in 1806, for the appropriation of balances of public money remaining in his hands, resulted in his ac quittal, but he never again held office. He died May 27, 1811. MELVILLE, ANDREW (1545-1622), a distinguished Scottish scholar, theologian, and religious reformer, was the youngest son of Richard Melville, proprietor of Baldovy, near Montrose, at which place Andrew was born in 1545. His father fell at the battle of Pinkie, fighting in the van of the Scottish army, two years after the birth of his son ; and, his wife having soon after followed him to the grave, the young orphan, then a gentle and delicate child, was tenderly cared for by his eldest brother Richard and his amiable and pious wife, whose memory the great scholar ever afterwards cherished with the warmest gratitude and affection. At a veiy early age Melville began to show a strong taste for learning, and his brother did every thing in his power to give him the best education the country could then afford. The rudiments of Latin he obtained at the grammar school of Montrose, after leaving which he prosecuted the study of Greek for two years under Pierre de Marsilliers, a Frenchman whom John Erskine of Dun had induced to settle at Montrose ; and such was the proficiency Melville made that on going to the university of St Andrews he excited the astonishment of both students and professors by using the Greek text of Aristotle, which no one else there understood, the Latin translation being that which was alone employed in the teaching of logic. On completing his course of study, Melville left St Andrews with the character of &quot; the best poet, philosopher, and Grecian of any young master in the land.&quot; He then, in 1564, being nineteen years of ago, set out for France d&amp;gt; perfect his education at the university of Paris. He there applied himself especially to the study of the Oriental languages, but he had also the advantage of attending the last course of lectures delivered by Turnebus in the Greek chair, as well as those of the celebrated Rarnus, whose mode of philosophizing and plan of teaching lie afterwards introduced into the universities of Scotland. From Paris he proceeded to Poitiers for the purpose of studying civil law, and though only twenty-one years of age he was apparently at once made a regent in the college of St Marceon. After a residence of three years, however, the political troubles of the country compelled him to leave France, and he then went on to Geneva, where he was warmly welcomed by Theodore Beza, at whose instigation he was appointed to fill the chair of humanity in the academy of Geneva, which then happened to be vacant. In addition to his teaching, however, he also applied himself to the further prosecution of his studies in Oriental litera ture, and in particular acquired from Cornelius Bertram, one of Lis brother professors, a knowledge of Syriac. While he resided at Geneva the massacre of St Bartholomew in 1572 drove an immense number of Protestant refugees to that city, including several of the most distinguished French men of letters of the time, with whom Melville had now the opportunity of intimate intercourse. Among these were several men deeply learned in civil law and political science, and their society no doubt tended greatly both to increase Melville s knowledge of the world and to enlarge his ideas of civil and ecclesiastical liberty acquisitions which he must have found of essential service when at a later period as a leader of the General Assembly he had to struggle against the attempts of James VI. to crush the liberties of the church of the Scottish Reforma tion. In 1574 Melville returned to Scotland, and almost immediately afterwards received the appointment of prin cipal of Glasgow University, which at the time had fallen into an almost ruinous state, the college having in fact been shut up and the students dispersed. Melville, however, with the knowledge of academic methods of training which he had obtained abroad, immediately set himself with immense energy to establish a good educa tional system, and in a short time his fame spread through the kingdom, and students flocked in from all quarters, till the class-rooms lately empty could not con tain those who came for admission. After labouring for six years in Glasgow, and having brought the seminary into a state of the most thorough efficiency, it was thought desirable that he should undertake the same duties at St Andrews. He accordingly proceeded there in 1580, and was installed as principal of the new theological college. His duties there comprehended the teaching, not only of theology, but of the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Rabbinical languages, and the great ability of his lectures was universally acknowledged, and excited quite a new interest in the university. The sweeping reforms, however, which his new modes of teaching necessarily involved, and even some of the new doctrines which he began to intro duce, such as the non-infallibility of Aristotle, soon brought him into collision with some of the other teachers in the university ; and this, along with the troubles which arose from the attempts of the court to force a bastard system of Episcopacy upon the Church of Scotland, forced him to flee into England in order to escape the consequences of an absurd charge of treason which was made against him, and which seemed to threaten a prolonged imprisonment and not improbably even his life. After an absence of twenty months he returned to Scotland in November 1585, and in March 1586 resumed his lectures in St Andrew?, where he continued to fulfil the duties of his office for