one of the canonical books of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, will,
it is hoped, remain unaffected by this treatment, which is least of all
controversial. The flowers that yield honey to the bee likewise delight
the bee-keeper with their perfume and the poet with their colours, and
there is no adequate reason why the magic verse which strikes a
responsive chord in the soul of lovers of high art, and starts a new
train of ideas in the minds of serious thinkers, should thereby lose any
of the healing virtues it may have heretofore possessed for the suffering
souls of the believing.

But viewed even as a mere work of art, it would be hopeless to endeavour
to press it into the frame of any one of the received categories of
literary composition, as is evident from the fact that authorised and
unauthorised opinion on the subject has touched every extreme, and still
continues oscillating to-day. Many commentators still treat it as a
curious chapter of old-world history narrated with scrupulous fidelity by
the hero or an eye-witness, others as a philosophical dialogue; several
scholars regard it as a genuine drama, while not a few enthusiastically
aver that it is the only epic poem ever written by a Hebrew. In truth, it
partakes of the nature of each and every one of these categories, and is
yet circumscribed by the laws and limits of none of them. In form, it is
most nearly akin to the drama, with which we should be disposed to
identify it if the characters of the prologue and epilogue were
introduced as _dramatis personae_ in action. But their doing and
enduring are presupposed as accomplished facts, and employed merely as a
foil to the dialogues, which alone are the work of the author. Perhaps
the least erroneous way succinctly to describe what in fact is a
_unicum_ would be to call it a psychological drama.

Koheleth, or the Preacher, is likewise a literary puzzle which for