Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 9 - Section II
II. — Rev. David Durand, F.R.S.
David Durand was born at Sommières in 1680. Though only five years of age at the date of the Revocation, he was educated till the age of fifteen under the eye of his reverend father, and he had been five years in the ministry before his mother’s death, so that he breathed as Huguenot an atmosphere as any of the refugees.
His father, the Pasteur Jean Durand, was a native of Montpellier. His charge was the congregation of Sommières, from whence he retired to Switzerland, and died at Neufchatel in 1695. His widow, who had managed the arduous deed of transplanting the children (four in number), out of France, survived till 1707. She died at Les Brenets, of which place her eldest son, Jean Antoine Durand, was pastor. [David Henry Durand, the son of Jean Antione, must be mentioned, partly as a meritorious scion of the family, and partly that he may not be confounded with his uncle David. [David Henry (born 1731, died 1808) was pastor of the City of London French Church; and his sermons, which were published in 1815, are pronounced to be clear, convincing, and energetic.]
Our David Durand was educated for the French Reformed Ministry. His theological studies were carried on at Basle, and at the age of twenty-two, that is, in 1702, he was admitted to the ministry there. 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. Thence he betook himself to Rotterdam, where the erudite Bayle admitted him to his friendship. In 1711 he came to London where he spent the remainder of his life. He was minister of the French Church, first in Martin’s Lane, and latterly in the Savoy.
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; but to give the names of the books which he wrote for that end is unnecessary. He lived to an honourable old age; he died in 1763, aged eighty-three.
To the above particulars, selected from Haag’s article, it should be added that Monsieur Durand, after having preached in the Walloon Church of Rotterdam in 1710 for nearly the whole of that year, received an invitation to settle in Amsterdam as pastor of a congregation there. He applied to the consistory for a ministerial certificate; but two ministers appeared, and impugned his doctrine as being tainted with the errors of the sect of the Remonstrants. The Consistory of Rotterdam having heard both sides, referred the case to the Synod of Briel (or La Brille). Durand was advised to print the sermons in question for the use of members of Synod; but before the printer was ready, the Synod met, viz., on the 7th May and following days. 1711. His accusers sent their complaints in writing, and Durand produced his sermons in manuscript, which he attested as being the originals without alteration. Le Synode des Eglises Wallonnes des Provinces Unies honourably acquitted him, as appears by Article XL. of its Acts, a copy of which was granted to him as the best certificate. With this extract he returned to Amsterdam (for in the end of 1710 he had settled there). The printer, having executed his order, now advised him to publish more of his sermons, that a respectable volume might be produced. When the title-page, as the last page in order of execution, came to be printed, he was a Minister at London. This is the reason why I have affixed the date of 1711 to his removal to England, while the Messieurs Haag make it 1714. The Sermons are able and interesting, although the author protests that considering himself too young to come forward as a theological author, he would not have gone into print except for the reason stated.
I wish to allude to his little book, dated London, 10th August 1714, and published at Rotterdam in 1717, “La Vie et les sentimens de Lucilio Vanini.” An English translation was published with this title-page, “The Life of Lucilio (alias Julius Caesar) Vanini, burnt for atheism at Thoulouse, being the sum of the Atheistical Doctrine taken from Plato, Aristotle, Averroes, Cardanus, and Pomponatius’s Philosophy — with a confutation of the same, and Mr Bayle’s arguments in behalf of Vanini compleatly answered. Translated from the French into English. London, printed for W. Meadows at the Angel in Cornhill. 1730.” 110 pp., 8vo. I allude to it because of the following explanation, which may serve as a vindication of other refugees as well as himself for being sometimes in doubtful company:—
“You know, Sir, the great esteem I have always had for Mr Bayle’s ingenuity, and with what vehemence I have wished he would turn it to a more uniform use and more worthy of him. I have often been with him, but we never agreed in any point, hut disputed about everything. I told him my thoughts about several parts of his works, as I would now do were he living. So that I flatter myself no one will reflect on me, since I take only the same liberty now, as I would have done during his life.”
A letter (written in his sixtieth year) is preserved, addressed to M. Francois Durand, Docteur en Droit, advocate at Leyden, supposed to be a relative. The letter is dated London, January 1740, and in it Pasteur David Durand tells the doctor that he cannot assist his son to obtain a pastoral charge in England. He speaks of the gradual falling off of the refugee congregations, and the difficulty of keeping them up. (This letter is described in the Guernsey Magazine for 1873.)
The French refugees took an interest in improving the style of the French translations of the Bible. The history of the French language differs from the English in this respect, that old French is capable of improvement in beauty and simplicity, while the English of our authorised version is unapproachable in these attributes, and so-called improvement introduces much scientific jargon and childish slang. In 1712 the Pasteur David Martin of Utrecht published “La Sainte Bible . . . . revue sur les originaux et retouchée dans le langage.” Mr Durand followed Mr Martin in a similar revision, though of the New Testament only. The first edition of which I am informed has no date on its title-page, but was probably published in 1720 (according to the British Museum catalogue); its title was “Le Nouveau Testament de Notre Seigneur Jesus Christ. Nouvclle Edition exactement revue sur le texte de M. Martin. Par D. Durand, Min. de la Savoye. A Londres, chez J. Nourse et P. Vaillant.” In his old age he endeavoured to interest a wider circle of readers by printing the following edition, “Le Nouveau Testament . . . . retouché sur le langage en faveur des jeunes gens avec une table des matières. Par D. Durand, Min. de la Savoye et Membre de la S.R. A Londres, chez J. Watts dans Wild-Court proche de Lincoln’s Inn Fielde et B. Dod a l’ensigne de la Bible et de la clef dans Ave-Mary-Lane près de la Halle des Stationers. 1750.” It seems to have become a school-book, and I have before me an edition published in 1772, “chez J. Nourse, P. Vaillant, and E. Johnson.”
*⁎* The fact that Mr. Durand, in and after 1725, most frequently employed the learned printer, Mr. William Bowyer, occasioned the titles of many of his works to be embalmed in Nichols’ “Literary Anecdotes.” The information which I have thus gained I give as an appendix to my brief memoir — except that, on the authority of Haag, I must correct Mr. Nichols as to the volume of sermons, “par Monsieur David Durand,” printed in 1726, which consists of Specimens of French Pulpit Oratory, to which, in 1728, there was added a Sermon by Mr. Durand himself (which he had preached in 1727) on the death of King George I.
In 1725 he began to publish, in monthly numbers, “Histoire du Seizième Siècle que commence avec le Regne de Louis XII. en 1498 et finit à la mort d’Isabelle de Castille en 1594. Par Monsieur Durand.” His studies on Pliny are thus described:— “Histoire de la Peinture Ancienne extraite de l’Histoire Naturelle de Pline Liv. xxv., avec le Texte Latin corrige sur les MSS. de Vossins et sur la première édition de Venise et eclairci par des remarques nouvelles,” folio, London, 1725. “Histoire Naturelle de l’Or et l’Argent extraite de Pline Liv. xxxiii. avec le texte Latin corrigé sur les MSS, et un Poème sur la chute de l’homme et sur les ravages de l’Or et de l’Argent dedié au Roi et à la Reine par David Durand, ministre de S. Martin et Membre de la Societé Royale,” folio, with cuts, London, 1729. The London Evening Post of April 9, 1730, advertises the latter volume, “To be had at Mr. Durand’s, in Broad Street, Gresham College; at Mr. Lyon’s, in Russell Street, Covent Garden; and at Mr. Vandenhoeck’s, bookseller, in the Strand. The Poem separately. It is reprinted in Holland without the knowledge of the author.” In 1732 he published “La Vie de M. De Thou,” and a study upon Cicero in 1740, namely, “Academiques de Ciceron avec le texte Latin de l’Edition de Cambrige, et des remarques nouvelles, outre les conjectures de Davies et de Mons. Bentley et le commentaire philosophique de Pierre Valentia, Jurisprud. Espagnol. Par un des Membres de la S.R.” He also published an edition of “Academica,” by “Petrus Valentia,” and he edited “Telemachus,” printed by Watts in 1745.
A posthumous publication in the year 1777 was entitled “La Vie de Jean Frederic Ostervald, pasteur de Neufchatel en Suisse. Par M. David Durand, ministre de la Chapelle Francoise de la Savoye et Membre de la Societe Royale.” To this was prefixed Durand’s [?] poem entitled, “Avis aux Predicateurs, ou Idée Generale de la Vraie Predication.” The most valuable portion of this volume is the biographical preface by Rev. Samuel Beuzeville, pasteur of Bethnal Green, who says that “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. Many of his valuable MSS. perished at London in an accidental fire.”
M. Beuzeville possessed three MSS. by M. Durand. (1.) Notes sur le N. Testament de M. Le Céne et sur le N. Testament de Genève. (2.) Idée Generale de l’Histoire. (3.) La Vie de Mr. Jacquelot — which last the possessor wished much to have seen printed.