David Carnegie Andrew Agnew

“ Durand was one of the most distinguished and eloquent among the French Protestant preachers, as is simply proved by the very favourable reception given to a volume of Sermons published by him when he was but thirty years old. No less favourable was the reception accorded to his translation of two books of Pliny and of the Academics of Cicero, and to his History of the 16th Century. He was a universal scholar, a deep divine, a devotee to truth, and — to crown all — a most benevolent and disinterested man. ”

“ A valued associate of learned men, and an industrious and successful author, David Durand was made a Fellow of the Royal Society. He occupied himself much with Pliny’s Natural History and the Philosophical Writings of Cicero. He gave to the world an elaborate History of the Sixteenth Century, and two volumes in continuation of Rapin’s History of England. He also wrote biographies of Mahomet, Lucilio Vanini, and the French Pastor Ostervald. To simplify the acquisition of the French and English languages by learners, was an object to which he devoted much attention ”

“ Soon afterwards he was appointed Chaplain of a French Refugee corps in Dutch pay, and followed the regiment to Spain. There, when one day he was taking a walk, a band of peasants waylaid him, seized him as a heretic, and were on the point of putting him to death, having prepared fiendish tortures, when the Duke of Berwick came up and rescued him; but though he gave his life back to him, that Anglo-French Romanist General refused him liberty. Durand was made a prisoner, but managed in course of time to escape from durance, and fled to Geneva. ”