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 ulterior view of attaching him to his patron's ecclesiastical policy. Whether having this suspicion or no, Melville declined the post. He had returned to Scotland for educational work, and he determined to wait for an opening in one of the Universities. Meanwhile he wished a little repose with the friends from whom he had been so long separated; and he went to Baldovy, where he was received with much affection. It was at this time that the attachment between him and his nephew was formed and consecrated by a kind of sacramental act on the part of the father of the latter--'I was resigned ower be my father hailelie into him to veak[1] upon him as his sone and servant, and, as my father said to him, to be a pladge of his love. And surlie his service was easie, nocht to me onlie, bot even to the fremdest man that ever served him.' [Footnote 1: Wait.] So great was Melville's scholarly reputation by this time that, at the General Assembly held a month after his return, the Universities of Glasgow and St. Andrews put in competing claims for his services as Principal. He decided in favour of Glasgow, on account of its greater need; and at the end of October he left Baldovy, accompanied by his nephew, to enter on his academic office. On the way two days were spent in Stirling, where the King, then a boy of nine, was residing; and the Melvilles saw him and were much struck with his precocity in learning: 'He was the sweitest sight in Europe that day for strange and extraordinar gifts of ingyne, judgment, memorie, and langage. I hard him discours, walking upe and doun in the auld Lady Marr's hand, of knawlage and ignorance, to my grait marvell and estonishment.' James never lost his fancy for discoursing at large and learnedly to the 'marvell and estonishment' of his hearers. But it was to visit the King's illustrious preceptor, George Buchanan, that Melville came by Stirling. The two were kindred spirits; they were like in their love of learning, in their scholarly accomplishments, in their passion for teaching, in their political and religious sympathies, in the ardour and vigour with which they maintained their convictions, in their valorous action for the defence of civil and religious freedom. At this time Buchanan was beginning the work which filled his closing years--his _History of Scotland_. Seven years afterwards the Melvilles paid him another visit, in Edinburgh, the account of which by the younger is one of the _loci classici_ of Scottish history. It contains, like the same writer's