Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 1.djvu/328

 Death of Adonis, which has been often extracted from his Epistolæ. seems to me to be a beautiful specimen of Latin versification, and in impassioned feeling almost rivalling Pope's Eloise. An exact list of the remainder of his compositions, which still lie in manuscript in the Advocates' Library, is given in his life by Lord Hailes, which was one of the few tentamina contributed by that great antiquary towards a Scottish Biographical Dictionary. Lord Hailes represents the vanity of Boyd as having been very great; but it is obvious that he could offer as high incense to others as to himself. He has the hardihood to compliment the peaceful James VI. as superior to Pallas or Mara: in another place, he speaks of that monarch as having distinguished himself at battles and sieges. It is well known that neither the praise nor the facts were true; and we can only account for such inordinate flattery, by supposing, what there is really much reason to believe, that panegyric in these days was a matter of course, and not expected to contain any truth, or even vraisemblance. This theory receives some countenance from a circumstance mentioned by Lord Hailes. The dedication, it seems, in which King James was spoken of as a hardy warrior, was originally written for a real warrior; but the name being afterwards changed, it was not thought necessary to alter the praise; and so the good Solomon, who is said to have shrunk from the very sight of cold iron, stands forth as a second Agamemnon.

, of Trochrig an eminent divine of the seventeenth century, was born at Glasgow in 1578. He was the son of James Boyd, "Tulchan-archbishop" of Glasgow, and Margaret, daughter of James Chalmers of Gaitgirth, chief of that name. On the death of his father, which happened when he was only three years old, his mother retired to the family residence in Ayrshire, and Boyd, along with Thomas, his younger brother, was in due time sent to the grammar school of the county town. From thence he was removed to the university of Edinburgh, where he studied philosophy under Mr Charles Ferine, (or Fairholm,) one of the regents, and afterwards divinity under the celebrated Robert Rollock. In compliance with the custom of the times, he then went abroad for the purpose of pursuing his studies, and France was destined to be the first sphere of his usefulness. He taught various departments of literature in the schools of Tours and Montauban, at the first of which places he became acquainted with the famous Dr Rivet In 1604, he was ordained pastor of the church at Verteuil, and in 1606 he was appointed one of the Professors in the university of Saumur, which had been founded in 1593, by the amiable Philip de Mornay, better known by the title of Du Plessis. Boyd also discharged the duties of a pastor in the church at the same town, and, soon after, became Professor of Divinity. As he had now the intention of remaining for some years abroad, he bethought himself of entering into the married state, and having met with "an honest virgin of the family of Malivern," says Wodrow, "he sought her parents for their consent, who having received a satisfactory testimonial of the nobility of his birth, and the competency of his estate, they easily yielded, and so he took her to wife, with the good liking of the church and the university, who hoped that by this means he would be fixed among them, so as never to entertain thoughts of returning to Scotland to settle there." But in this they were soon disappointed, for king James having heard through several noblemen, relations of Mr Boyd, of his worth and talents, offered him the principalship of the university of Glasgow.

The duties of principal in that college were, by the charter of this monarch, not confined even to those connected with that institution. He was required to teach theology on one day, and Hebrew and Syriac the next, alternately; but this was not all. The temporalities of the rectory and vicarage of Govan had