Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs are among the most aggrieved books of Scripture. We have endeavoured to set their claims in a proper light, and to vindicate them from injurious aspersions. In regard to Ecclesiastes, this has been attempted by stating, first of all (not consecutively, as in Job), the real design and the argument of the sacred writer, and we have then applied ourselves to the consideration of some of the more signal matters which the Book contains.

Upon the whole, although the present Volume comprises a large proportion of material facts and incidents, it has more of a literary cast than any of the others. This will, we trust, appear in the entire Series as an agreeable diversity, and we are without fear that this Volume will be regarded as less interesting than the others, because the writer has in some places made rather more than usual claim upon the reader's attention.

LONDON, December 1851.