232 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 



Taking the parishes in alphabetical order, let all Church 



bells be catalogued on a set system with 

 Need for dates, founders' names, inscriptions, if possible 

 Bell Cata- also weights and measurements, and hours of 

 logue. ringing. Our Club might thus render an 



invaluable service to a neglected branch of 

 Scottish archaeological research. The work is well worth 

 doing, for does not " an old bell by its inscriptions, its 

 medallions, and its ornaments, relate the history of the 

 past, better than a mutilated stone."^^ 



Before leaving this chair, I wish to pay a debt of 



gratitude, long overdue, to one particular 

 Tribute to memory, a famous Scot, closely identified 

 James with "Berwick and its vicinage!' Almost 



Melville. three centuries have elapsed since Berwick 



numbered amongst its citizens the exiled 

 James Melville, nephew to the possibly more learned, yet 

 far less likeable, Andrew, the Bancroft of Scottish Presby- 

 tery. Born at his ancestral seat of Baldovy on Tay side, on 

 25th July, the day "dedicat of auld to S. James the Apostle 

 and Martyr, in the yeir of our Lord ISoG,"^^ \^\^ college 

 daj'S were spent at St. Andrews — " a happie and golden 

 time indeed." Minister at Kilrenny, Professor of Hebrew 

 and Oriental Languages, twice Moderator of the General 

 Assembly, he had the refusal of a Bishopric from James VI. 

 Courtier, scholar, author, if only for his classical description 

 of Knox, as he saw and heard him lecture on Daniel, 

 at St. Leonard's College, during the summer and winter of 

 1571, James Melville is well worthy of remembrance. 



For us, however, local interest centres in his 

 His Last closing years at Berwick, and the romance 

 Days Spent of his second marriage, for here, at fifty-six, 

 at Berwick, he wedded Deborah Clerke, a maiden of 



nineteen, daughter of Richard Clerke, vicar 

 of Berwick (1589-1607). Melville in his last days ate 



^^ M. Pardiac — Bells of Bordeaux, 1858. 

 la Melville's Diary. 



