With regard to the Book of Ecclesiastes itself, the writer must confess himself _homo unius libri_; for some years past all his Hebrew and Greek studies have been devoted to the investigation of the meaning of this one book in the Sacred Canon, and all his conclusions must be taken with the reservation that they apply, directly, to this one book alone. Such a concentration of effort may be expected to produce results which might not be arrived at by a far wider and more extensive research, just as a few rays of sunlight concentrated by a small lens will burn where the sun himself will only warm. Nevertheless, this book does not profess to be anything in the nature of a new discovery. Sense is attempted to be made of difficult passages by what may be called a microscopic attention to the grammar of the writer, and a minute and careful analysis of every form and expression he uses. The test of the correctness of the meaning thus found is displayed in the way in which it falls into place in the context, and squares with its tenor. But nothing novel in the way of Hebrew grammar is urged, or anything which may not be found in ordinary commentaries, except, perhaps, it be the fact of the difference of signification between the contracted and full relative pronoun――a usage which is peculiar to the Book of Ecclesiastes. This has hitherto been dismissed by other commentators as evidence of late composition, without giving it the notice it merited. Many points of interest are started in these pages, which would well repay a more careful investigation than I have either leisure or learning to follow out. They are only presented so far as necessary to illustrate and clear up difficulties in the interpretation of that marvellous book which is the subject of this Commentary. If I have succeeded, the Church will be benefited; if I have altogether failed, my book will only add a few pages more to the vast literature which this, the scientific treatise of the Divine Word, has elicited. LONDON, _Oct. 1873_. INTRODUCTION. DATE AND AUTHORSHIP.