ZACHARY

BOYD (1585?-1653)  , Scottish divine, was educated at the universities of Glasgow and St Andrews . He was for many years a teacher in the Protestant college of Saumur in France, but returned to Scotland in 1621, to escape the Huguenot persecution . In 1623 he was appointed minister of the Barony church in Glasgow, and he was rector of the university in 1634, 1635 and 1645 . He bequeathed to the university the half of his fortune, a sum amounting to £20,000 Scots, besides his library and twelve volumes of MSS . His poetical compositions, though often eccentric, have some merit . The common statement that he made the printing of his metrical version of the Gospels and other Biblical narratives a condition of the reception of his grant to the university is a mistake . In later years he was a staunch Covenanter, and though for a time opposed to Oliver Cromwell, afterwards became friendly with him . His best-known works are The Battel of the Soul in Death (1629), of which a new,edition, with a biography by G . Neil, was published in Glasgow in 1831; Zion's Flowers—often called " Boyd's Bible " (1644); Four Letters of Comfort (1640, reprinted, Edinburgh, 1878) .