VirginiaHuguenot
Puritanboard Librarian
Zachary Boyd was famous for versifying not only non-Psalter scripture songs but other parts of the Bible as well.
There is an interesting bit of information from his biography on his connection to the Psalter as follows:
His ambition was to put the whole Bible into verse, of course an impossible attempt; and undoubtedly we should not call it all poetry, but poetic prose.
There is an interesting bit of information from his biography on his connection to the Psalter as follows:
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.