BOYD, Zachary, a learned and pious clergyman of the Scottish Church, was born towards the end of the sixteenth century, and died in 1653 or 1654. He was for many years regent in the college of Saumur in France, but returned to his native country in 1621, to escape the persecution of the Protestants. In 1623 he was appointed minister of the Barony church in Glasgow, and held the office of rector of the university in the years 1634, 1635, and 1645. To his munificence the university is mainly indebted for the erection of its present buildings. Besides his library and MSS., he bequeathed to it the half of his fortune, a sum amounting to £20,000 Scots. His bust over the gateway within the
1 This line, which is scarcely intelligible, ought perhaps to have stood thus:—
All hail and fyne in fassoun and effect.
2 Kennedy's Annals of Aberdeen, vol. II. p. 387.
3 Halles's Sketch of the Life of Mark Alexander Boyd, 4to. McCrie's Life of Melville, vol. I. p. 85.
court commemorates his important benefactions. The number of his published works was considerable, and 86 of his MSS. are said to be preserved in the library of Glasgow College. His best known works are The Last Battel of the Soule in Death, 1629, of which a new edition, with a biography by Mr Neil, was published at Glasgow in 1831; Zion's Flowers, 1644, the English Academie, and Songs of Zion. His poetical compositions are not without some merit, though the remarkable eccentricity of some of them has generally made them a source of amusement rather than of edification. The common statement that he made the printing of his metrical version of the Bible a condition of the reception of his grant to the university, is a mistake.