itself into pure fun, now allying itself with a quietly insinuated pathos, or kindly wisdom. There are some more serious and meditative pieces, not without gleams of more or less conscious humour; but the most characteristic are the witty and sparkling verses in which the poet dwells on some odd fancy till he laughs and makes us laugh outright; or the amusing but more thoughtful ones in which his wit is itself a form of wis dom, and in his kind, genial way he lets us into the secret of the light heart and generous, hopeful spirit which have gathered so much sweetness out of the experiences of more than threescore years and ten. From the earlier, more purely comic poems we could pick out not a few which are quite worthy of being placed in the same rank with Hood's poems of wit and humour. Let doubters read "To the Portrait of a Lady," "The Music Grinders," "The Treadmill Song," or a dozen more we could name, The grave and gay meet in the "Poems of the Class of '29," written for the annual gatherings of Harvard Classmates, from 1851 to 1881, with many other pieces d'occasion, or (in plain English) poems written to order. Such productions are apt to show an author at his worst, instead of his best, but this is not Dr. Holmes's case; and we may congratulate ourselves on the custom which seems to have been observed on all fraternal and festive gatherings, anniversaries, welcomes, &c., of calling on him, not for a speech, but a poem. The few graver and more studied pieces are a trifle more conventional in form and diction than those we have briefly characterised. But it would be difficult to turn to any of these pages and not feel that they bring us into pleasant and almost intimate relations with the author, whose cheerfulness is so catching, and who, in his gayest as in his most serious moods, has such a high appreciation of all that is good and true in life.

THE MODERN REVIEW.

APRIL, 1882.

ECCLESIASTES.*

W ITH respect to its enigmatical character, its sceptical uncertainty, and its tone of pessimistic sadness, Ecclesiastes may be called the Hamlet of the Bible. And, like Shakespeare's drama, the great Biblical enigma has long presented special attractions to the student. In a similar manner, also, scholarly devotion to its study has borne fruit in an abundant literature. But the parallel between the two works is certainly not in all respects perfect. For example, in times past Ecclesiastes can scarcely be said to have been a popular book. Probably its great author did not intend it to be such. Its unbending individuality, its gnarled and unsymmetrical form, show little of those arts which are wont to please the populace. Instead of courting popularity, its motto would rather seem to be

“Odi profanum vulgus et arceo."

"Me raris juvat auribus placere."

Nevertheless, in our own day Ecclesiastes appears to be PLUMPTRE, D.D., Professor of New Testament Exegesis, King's College, Ecclesiastes; or, The Preacher. With Notes and Introduction. By E. H. London, Prebendary of St. Paul's, Examining Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Cambridge: At the University Press; London: Cambridge Warehouse, 17, Paternoster-row. 1881.

attracting attention more widely, and attaining greater prominence in the public view, than heretofore. If the book is not already popular, it is in a fair way towards becoming so. Reasonable causes for this change are not very difficult to discern. The foundations of cherished creeds are loosening and yielding. And the spirit of the age is thus in harmony with that of the book, in its sceptical questioning and restless, fluctuating uncertainty. The atmosphere is clouded with gloom. The self-confident optimism of the last century, which has, especially in this country, through the influence of the economists, so long protracted its power, is tottering to the fall, or is already fallen. Wealth in huge accumulations, ostentatious frivolity, and luxury worthy of imperial Rome, cannot stifle and subdue, or even conceal, that inner sadness which contemporary art and poetry embody and express. The age can adopt as its own the utterance, "I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." Science boasts vaingloriously of her progress, yet mocks us with her grand discovery of progress through pain, telling of small advantages for the few purchased by enormous waste of life, by internecine conflict and competition, and by a deadly struggle with Nature herself, "red in tooth and claw with ravin," greedy to feast on the offspring of her own redundant fertility. The revelations of Geology and Astronomy deepen our depression. The littleness of our lives and the insignificance of our concerns become more conspicuous in comparison with the long and slow procession of the mons which have gone before, and with the vast ocean of being around us, driven and tossed by enormous, complicated, and unresting forces. A new significance is thus given to the words, "One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for ever;" "All things are full of labour; man

cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing;" "There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after;" "In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow;" "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; vanity of vanities; all is vanity."

But, besides the causes just mentioned, in an age of restless inquiry, the enigma of Ecclesiastes could scarcely fail to attract special attention. The impracticable knot must now at last be untied-or cut. From another point of view, also, Ecclesiastes has been recently regarded with peculiar interest. Theologians, generally distinguished for conservative orthodoxy, have, with respect to the authorship of Ecclesiastes, assented to the conclusions of modern criticism, and abandoned the traditional opinion that the book was written by Solomon. It is not unreasonable, therefore, that there should have been a strong desire aroused to defend the Solomonic authorship. If this, ostensibly the weakest point, can be rendered impregnable, the defence of traditional opinion as to the age and authorship of certain other Old Testament books need occasion little anxiety. To this end a rather bulky volume on The Authorship of Ecclesiastes' has been lately put forth. But the writer of this volume-who does not give his name-is defending a desperate and hopeless cause. The negative verdict which has been pronounced is not likely to be changed or reversed.

In England, during recent years, besides German commentaries introduced in an Anglicised dress, the number of works published, dealing more or less completely with Ecclesiastes, has been somewhat remarkable. This number would be considerable even in Germany, that land of Biblical research. Lately there has been added to the list a commentary on the book from the pen of Dr. E. H. Plumptre,

Professor of New Testament Exegesis in King's College, London. Since the publication of this commentary, Dr. Plumptre, we are glad to find, has been appointed to the Deanery of Wells-an instance of preferment worthily bestowed, though perhaps it may admit of question whether Dr. Plumptre's numerous and long-continued services may not fairly claim a still higher reward.

The present article will be mainly concerned with some of the subjects discussed in Dr. Plumptre's Introduction; and there are in relation to Ecclesiastes three especially fundamental questions:-(1) When was the Book written? (2) What is the meaning of the name Koheleth ?—a name which the Authorised Version translates "The Preacher;" and (3) Is the so-called Epilogue an integral part of the Book, or a later addition? If we can answer these questions, we shall have proceeded far towards solving the enigma which Ecclesiastes presents.

I.

When was the Book written?

Until a comparatively recent period there was a general agreement among both Jewish and Christian writers that Ecclesiastes was the work of the great Hebrew monarch, Solomon. Opinions adverse to the traditional belief had been expressed by Luther, and subsequently by Grotius; but it was long before the belief appeared much shaken. At length, however, critics of widely divergent theological views admitted the soundness of Grotius's judgment that the diction of Ecclesiastes is inconsistent with the alleged Solomonic authorship. The recognition of Aramaisms and later Hebrew words did not, however, fix the date of the book with even tolerable precision. With a copious and continuous literature for comparison the case might be otherwise; but great difficulty results from the paucity of