Known collectively as Boyd s Bible-though Boyd never did versify the entire Bible-these poems critical estimation has never been high : representative is the nineteenth-century writer John Lang s opinion that Boyd was not a poet, yet he was something more than a mere doggerel rhymer [ & . ] the commendable features are often marred not merely by rugged verse, but also by hard and unsympathetic thought.
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Boyd s autograph manuscripts, which are held at Glasgow University Library, include " Zions Flowers " ( or Christian Poems for Spiritual Edification ), the didactic set of exercises " The English Academie " and versified Gospels entitled " The Four Evangels . " " Zions Flowers " versifies nineteen biblical narratives from the Old Testament, such as Pharoah s Tyrannie and Death, David and Goliath and Destruction of Sodom.
