both school and college. To sup ply this, the influential classes must set a far higher value on literature than they do at present. Now, I cannot conceal from myself that there are formidable obstacles to their enlightenment; but, Sir, it is not impossible that they may be surmounted when such men as you come forward to dispel the dark ness, you would take an opportunity of proclaiming your indignation at the manner in which those in power but too frequently fill up situations, which cannot fail to have consider. able influence on the advancement of literature in Scotland. Tell them, Sir, that it is cruel and unjust to Scotland to fill her universities with men fitter for any other situations whatever than those to which they are appointed. Tell Nil desperandum est Teucro duce, auspice them, that it ill becomes those to Teucro. I cannot help thinking, Sir, that a great effect will be produced a mong the higher ranks by your ha ving lifted up your voice against ignorance, and in the praise of learning. As I have no doubt it would be accompanied with the most salutary consequences, I cannot refrain from expressing a wish that whom power is intrusted, in a free state, to be guided by the maxims of a despotism, under which it was the practice that Quanto quis ser, vitio promptior, opibus et honoribus extolleretur. I have the honour to be, with the most profound respect, Sir, your grateful and most obedient servant, A SCOTSMAN. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. Life of Andrew Melville; contain ing Illustrations of the Ecclesiastical and Literary History of Scotland, &c. with an Appendix, consisting of Original Papers. By THOMAS M'CRIE, D.D. Minister of the Gospel, Edinburgh; the 2d Edition. Edinburgh and London, 1824. TRUTH, in every form, is not only more important, but even more interesting, than fiction. Nothing but a momentary belief in the re ality of any fictitious story can render it interesting to ordinary read. ers; and all its impression on their minds must thus be placed to the account of truth. The more critical judge of such productions, who keeps their fictitious character in mind while he is perusing them, is gratified chiefly by the skill which is displayed in imitating the ac tual incidents of human life; so that to this class of readers, also, it is still some relation or resemblance to truth, which constitutes the principal attraction. But, besides the mere truth of à narrative, or its resemblance to truth, the importance or use of its details constitutes its highest merit and most powerful source of interest to every reflecting mind. The arguments which it may furnish in support of general propositions; the illustrations which it affords of the principles of human nature; the examples which it presents for the direction of human conduct;-are all matters of deep interest to every person who reads for improvement, and are all to be found only in true history. The emotions, also, of sympathy and admiration, which are excited by the perusal of adventurous acts, or affecting scenes, are always more vivid, the more that we are assured of the reality of what is related; both because we are assisted by such a belief in forming a just conception of the events and feelings depicted in the narrative, and because we are impressed more rea◄ dily with the possibility of being ourselves placed in similar circumstances. Hence the frequent enquiry even of a child, before yielding its mind to the influence of such narratives, "whether they are all true," and hence the additional hold on the feelings, which every fiction derives from its being at least founded upon facts. It adds greatly to the importance and interest of such narratives, when they are connected with general history. When the personal exertions of the hero are interwoven with the progress of events affecting the state of a whole people; and when the individual presented to our observation, thus appears as the representative of a multitude of human beings involved in the same fate, his success or his failure necessarily excites a stronger in terest, in proportion to its decisive influence on the welfare of thousands besides himself. All this moral power must obviously be still farther increased, when that country, or that people, whose history we are perusing, is our own; and when the events described, besides being strongly associated with many existing names and places, have been the sources of benefits which we are now enjoying, or the causes of evils which we are still deploring. rience the good or evil effects, but one in which we might have been personally involved, that is brought under our review by the pen of a faithful historian; not merely a king contending for his throne, or a warrior for his country, or a noble for his honours, or a scholar for his fame, or a philosopher for his favourite science, but a citizen struggling for the common rights of all; then must the worthiness of the cause come powerfully in aid of the most accomplished narrator, and even make up for the absence of many adventitious attractions. There is no claim or cause so perfectly calculated to prove thus universally interesting, as that which involves in it the principles of religious liberty, the sacred rights of conscience; and, whether a man detests the idea of being compelled to profess what he does not believe, or of being fettered in what he holds it a sacred duty to observe, there is no blessing so essential to his happiness as an enlightened toleration. We do not know any department of history, which combines so many of these attractions to which we have briefly alluded, as the Biography of Protestant Reformers ; and we are rather surprised, that, among the multitude of instructive publications designed for the younger and more unlearned readers, a greater number of short popular sketches of such lives has not been produced. We do not know any author who has done so much justice to this subject, and whose works (independent of other valuable purposes) would afford better materials for such instructive sketches, than the distinguished biographer of Knox and Melville; and we are happy to observe, from the appearance of a new edition of the last mentioned work, that such inestimable productions are not altogether jostled off the course, and kept out of sight, 4 U once, we have thrown aside our analysis of its contents, as we found it swelling under our hands beyond all the usual limits of a review. "The Life of Andrew Melville” is itself a selection of memorable things; and every topic that it touches is so animated by the great cause in which he laboured, as well as so calculated to vindicate that cause and to display his character, that we grieve to omit, yet find it impossible to abridge, a great variety of episodical discussions and sketches connected with the main subject. There are, however, three distinct views, under which the work may be presented to our readers, or rather three distinct departments, into which its contents may be distributed in the imperfect analysis, which our limits will allow us to attempt; viz. as a literary history, an ecclesiastical enquiry, and a private memoir. by the extraordinary press of more bustling and showy competitors for the notice of the public. We believe, that these volumes would make their way much more rapidly if their real character were better understood; and that a great portion, even of those who read for instruction, are not aware of their interesting contents, but are actually deterred from their pages by the very erroneous impression, that they are occupied by a mere detail of obsolete ecclesiastical discussions. We have long and anxiously looked for some critical notices of " the Life of Melville," which would have done justice to its merits, and prepared the public to welcome it as a work that is neither less able nor less interesting than its predecessor, "the Life of Knox." We believe, however, that, in order to place either its subject or its exe'cution in a proper light, there would be required, in the Reviewer, a de- I. As a literary history, the Life gree of reading and research nearly of Melville, besides presenting a equal to that of its author; and concise view of the state and prothat, as such a qualification for dis- gress of literature and philosophy playing its excellencies, or detect- in the principal kingdoms of Euing its errors, is not a very com- rope during the period which the mon attainment even among the narrative embraces, details with critical brotherhood, we have not great clearness of statement, enlibeen forward to take up a topic, in vening anecdote, and curious rethe discussion of which we must search, the advancement of classihave exercised the docility of dis- cal and theological knowledge in ciples, instead of exhibiting (as we our own country, by the enlightenare supposed to be fonder of doing) ed plans and energetic labours of the dogmatism of dictators. We the Scottish Reformers. In these do not, by any means, undertake, important improvements, Melville in our present notice of the work, acted a very conspicuous part. He to supply this lack of qualification was born of an ancient family, at for the office, or of good will to the Baldovie in the parish of Craig, in cause; but, without presuming to the year 1545; and, in the neighspeak as judges of what such an bouring town of Montrose, he reauthor should have said, we pro- ceived the best education which his pose merely to act as reporters of native country was then able to what he has said, in illustrating one afford. After finishing the usual of the most interesting and instruc- course of Latin at the grammar tive periods of Scottish history. school, he made considerable proEven in this humbler task, we have gress in the study of the Greek been perplexed by the very excel- language, under the tuition of Pierre lence of the work; and, more than Massiliers, a learned Frenchman who had been brought to Scotland by John Erskine of Dun; and when he went to the University of St. Andrews in 1559, he excited the astonishment of his teachers by us ing the Greek text of Aristotle's works with which they themselves had no acquaintance. Their admiration of his proficiency was greatly increased by his small stature and slender frame of body, which gave him a very boyish appearance; and John Douglas, Provost of St. Mary's College, who frequently invited him to his chamber, taking him between his knees, while he questioned him on his studies, used to exclaim in admiration of his replies, "My silly fatherless and motherless boy, it's ill to witt what God may make of thee yet." In his early years, his attention had been directed by his brother Richard to the Latin poetry of modern Italians; and in this species of composition, to which he may be supposed to have been still farther attracted by the fame of his countryman Buchanan, he after wards attained a very high degree of excellence. Having acquired all the branches of learning which his native country could supply, he proceeded to the Continent in 1564, in quest of farther instruction; and, after studying two years at the Uni versity of Paris, which was at that time highly celebrated, he went to Poictiers, where, at the age of twenty-one years, he was chosen Regent in one of its colleges, and discharged the duties of that office for three years with distinguished reputation and success. The classes of this seminary having been dispersed by the siege of the place, in the civil war between the Catholics and Protestants, he removed to Geneva for the prosecution of theological learning, where he was immediately appointed to the chair of Humanity, which happened to be vacant at the time of his arrival, and where, at the same time, he at tended as a student the public instruction of the other professors. Here also he formed an acquaintance with many eminent literary characters, especially among the French Protestants, who were driven by persecution from their own country; and from sympathy for their misfortunes, as well as from a knowledge of their worth, he may be supposed to have acquired much of that abhorrence of oppression and love of religious liberty, for which he was afterwards so greatly distinguished. After an absence of ten years he returned to his native country; and so much had the fame of his erudition preceded him, in consequence of letters from Geneva, and the reports of his countrymen who had known him there, that immediate applications for his services were made from various quarters. He accepted the office of Principal in the University of Glasgow, (an event which forms an important era in the literary history of Scotland ;) and instantly applied himself, with his accustomed energy, to improve the plan of teaching agreeably to the most approved practices of foreign academies. In order to provide competent instructors, he selected a class of young men, well grounded in the Latin language, whom he conducted, under his own tuition, and with great labour, through a complete course of study. "He began by initiating them into the troduced them to the study of logic and principles of Greek grammar. He then in thetoric; using as his text books the Dial ectics of his Parisian master, Ramus, and the rhetoric of Talaus. While they were engaged in these studies, he read with them the best classical authors, as Virgil and Hesiod, Theocritus, Pindar, and Isocrates, Horace among the Latins, and Homer, among the Greeks; pointing out, as he went along, their beauties, and illustrating by them the principles of logic and rhetoric, he taught the elements of Euclid, with the Proceeding to mathematics and geography, arithmetic and geometry of Ramus, and the geography of Dionysius. And, agree ably to his plan of uniting elegant literature with philosophy, he made the students use the Phænomena of Aratus, and the Cosmographia of Honter. Moral Philo. sophy formed the next branch of study; and on this he read Cicero's Offices, Para doxes, and the Tusculan Questions, the Ethics and Politics of Aristotle, and certain dialogues of Plato. In Natural Philosophy he made use of Fernelius, and commented on parts of the writings of Aristotle and Plato. To these he added a view of universal history and chronology, and the progress of the art of writing. Entering upon the duties of his own immediate profession, he taught the Hebrew language, first more cursorily, by going over the ele mentary work of Martinius, and afterwards by a more accurate examination of its principles, accompanied with a praxis upon the Psalter and books of Solomon. He then initiated the students into Chaldee and Syriac; reading those parts of the books of Ezra and Daniel that are written in Chaldee, and the Epistle to the Galatians in the Syriac version. He also went through all the common heads of divinity according to the order of Calvin's Institutions, and gave lectures on the different books of Scripture This course of study was completed in six years. From the variety of subjects which it embraced, and the number of books read and commented on, some idea may be form ed of the extent of his erudition." Vol. 1. P. 67. Having thus secured, or rather prepared, a sufficient number of Regents, he abolished the old practice, by which the same regent conducted his students through the whole course of the studies necessary for their laureation; and appointed separate professors for the different branches of literature and philosophy. The advantages of this arrangement are now sufficiently obvious; and its good effects were very soon and sensibly experienced in the University of Glasgow. Students from all quarters crowded the class-rooms; and a number of distinguished scholars, well qualified to promote the improved system of education, issued from that seminary during the short period of Melville's superintendence. Nor was it merely to the superiority of his system, but to the spirit which he infused into its execution, that the interests of learning were so He encouraged deeply indebted. the pursuit of knowledge, not more by his public instructions, than by his private conversations. In his intercourse with his colleagues, and particularly at the college table, (to which many were accustomed to resort for the sake of the literary dessert which followed the frugal repast,) he was fond of discussing questions of literature; and possess, ed an uncommon faculty of at once illustrating and enlivening such subjects by amusing anecdotes and classical allusions. The master of the grammar school, afterwards principal of the college, used to say of these literary conversations, that "he learned more of Andrew Melville cracking and playing, for understanding of the authors taught in the school, than by all his com, mentators." With his usual decision of character, he maintained the authority of his office as Principal of the college, at the same time that he showed so much diligence as an instruc tor of the youth. He was lenient to penitent offenders, and ready to overlook personal affronts; but he supported with the greatest determination the general credit of the university, and authority of the professors. An assault had been made by two of the students with a drawn sword on one of the profes sors, to the hazard of his life; and the college, in conjunction with the town council, had decreed that the offender should come bare-headed and bare-footed to the place where he had committed the offence, and there crave pardon of the university and the regent whom he had assaulted. His friends, who were persons of distinction, encouraged him to refuse submission, and threatened, in the manner of those |