As the first of these vols. is now very scarce (a limited number being printed by subscription), the following extracts may be interesting to some of your readers, and at the same time correct some errors of our correspondents:—
"Mr. Zacharie Boyd was descended from the family of the Boyds of Pinkill (Carrick, Ayrshire). He was cousin to Mr. Robert Boyd, of Trochrigg, who was appointed Principal of the University of Glasgow in 1615. The date of his birth is not exactly known; some time previous to 1590. He received his education at the school of Kilmarnock. The first notice we have of him is in a letter to Principal Boyd, from David Boyd, in 1605, wherein he says, 'There is a friend of yours, Zacharie Boyd, who will pass his course at the colledge within two years.' After having finished his course at the University of Glasgow, he studied at the College of Saumur, in France, under his relation, Robert Boyd: he returned to his native county in 1621. In 1623 he was ordained Minister of the Barony Parish of Glasgow, in which situation he continued till his death in 1653-1654."
Mr. Zacharie Boyd was never Principal or a Professor in Glasgow College: the only office he ever held in the college was that of Lord Rector (an honorary office annually elected), which he held in the years 1634, 1635, 1645. He was a great benefactor to the college, to which he left 20,000l. Scots, for buildings and bursaries.
The crypt below Glasgow Cathedral, called St. Mungo's Crypt, was the barony church in Zacharie's time, and where he preached; it is this same place which Sir Walter Scott so well describes in Rob Roy (vol. ii. chap. 3., edition in 48 vols.), where Francis Osbaldistone heard sermon. Z. Boyd was, both in prose and verse, a very voluminous writer; his works, however, are chiefly in MS. in the library of Glasgow College.
In addition to editing The Last Battle, Mr. Neil has examined the "Poetical Works" in MS.; and has given a summary of the whole in the Appendix to the Biographical Sketch; and has printed for the first time upwards of 3000 lines from the poetical MSS.
With regard to Mr. Boyd's poetry, the following account from Neil's Biographical Sketch may be accounted satisfactory, with reference to the lines often quoted as from Zacharie Boyd's Bible:
"The work, however, which has given the greatest public notoriety to his name as a poetical writer, is that generally called 'Zacharie Boyd's Bible,' said to be a metrical version of the whole Scriptures—an arduous task indeed, if ever he contemplated the undertaking. But such a book as this has existed only in name, not in reality; at least, it is nowhere to be found among his works. The only one approaching to it is a metrical version of the 'Four Evangels,' which proceeds through the Gospels of the New Testament by chapter and verse.... And, among other works, he produced two volumes under the title of 'Zion's Flowers,' and it is these which are usually shown as his Bible, and have received that designation. These volumes consist of a collection of Poems from select subjects in Scripture History, such as Jonah, Jephtha, David and Goliath, &c., &c., rendered into the dramatic form, in which various 'Speakers' are introduced, and where the prominent parts of the Scripture narrative are brought forward and amplified. We have a pretty close parallel to these in the 'Ancient Mysteries' of the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries, and in the Sacred Dramas of more modern writers.
"It is from this work, Zion's Flowers, that the various quotations which have occasioned so much mirth to the public are said to have been made, but not one of these which are in circulation are to be found there: the only 'genuine extract from these MSS. is that printed by Pennant.'"—Biog. Sketch, p. 14. et seq.
The "genuine extract" will be found in Pennant's Tour in Scotland, vol. ii. p. 156.
PHILOBODIUS, "NOTES AND QUERIES," Vol. i., p. 406., will find the four lines he quotes given differently there.