writings. He has great fertility of explication, amounting often to diffuseness, and, in many cases, it would have been well had he known where to have Caused. With extensive powers of graphic delineation, he is an instructive and interesting writer, though dwelling too much upon minute circumstances. He seems naturally to have been a man of an agreeable temperament, and as a consequence, at times, blends, with the subject on which he dilates, a dash of his own good nature, in some humorous and witty observations. His irony, often well-timed and well-turned, comes down with the force of illustration, and the sneer of sarcastic rebuke. A close observer of mankind and their actions, the judgment he forms respecting them, is that of a shrewd, sagacious, and penetrating mind. Like a skilful master of his profession, he discovers an intimate knowledge of the manifold, and secret workings of the depravity of the human heart; and though some of the disclosures of its wickedness may not be conveyed in the most polished terms, we commend the honesty and simplicity of his heart, who had invariably followed the good old practice of a sincere and wholesome plainness. His prayers breathe the warm and powerful strains of a devotional mind, and a rich vein of feeling and piety runs through the matter of all his meditations. We have now to notice Mr Boyd in the character in which he has hitherto been best known to the world, namely, in that of a poet One of his most popular attempts to render himself serviceable to his country was in preparing a poetical version of the Book of Psalms for the use of the church. It had been previous to 1646 that he engaged in this, as the Assembly of 1647, when appointing a committee to examine Rous's version, which had been transmitted to them by the Assembly at Westminster, 'recommended them to avail themselves of the psalter of Rowallan, and of Mr Zachary Boyd, and of any other poetical writers.' It is further particularly recommended to Mr Zachary Boyd to translate the other Scriptural Songs in metre, and to report his travails therein to the commission of that Assembly: that after their examination thereof they may send the same to the presbyteries to be there considered until the next General Assembly. (Assembly Acts, Aug. 28, 1647.)' Mr Boyd complied with this request, as the Assembly, Aug. 10, 1648, 'recommends to Mr John Adamson and Mr Thomas Crawfurd to revise the labours of Mr Zachary Boyd upon the other Scripture Songs, and to prepare a report thereof to the said commission for publick affairs,' who, it is probable, had never given in any 'report of their labours.' Of his version, Baillie had not entertained a high opinion, as he says, 'Our good friend, Mr Zachary Boyd, has put himself to a great deal of pains and charges to make a psalter, but I ever warned him his hopes were groundless to get it received in our churches, yet the flatteries of his unadvised neighbours makes him insist in his fruitless design.' There seems to have been a party who did not undervalue Mr Boyd's labours quite so much as Baillie, and who, if possible, were determined to carry their point, as, according to Baillie's statement, 'The Psalms were often revised, and sent to presbyteries,' and, 'had it not been for some who had more regard than needed to Mr Zachary Boyd's psalter, I think they (Rous's version} had passed through in the end of last Assembly; but these, with almost all the references from the former Assemblies, were remitted to the next.' On 23d November, 1649, Rous's version, revised and improved, was sanctioned by the commission with authority of the General Assembly, and any other discharged from being used in the churches, or its families. Mr Boyd was thus deprived of the honour to which he aspired with some degree of zeal, and it must have been to himself and friends, a source of considerable disappointment.
"Among other works, he produced two volumes, under the title of 'Zion's Flowers, or Christian Poems for Spiritual! Edification,' and it is these which
