One might excuse it perhaps if in some degree dictated by a bitter grief at the misfortunes of his country; pessimism might be natural in 1872. But alas! ten years later the same view is repeated and deliberately justified, nor can the author of Koheleth be congratulated. He is now described[1] as 'le charmant écrivain qui nous a laissé cette délicieuse fantaisie philosophique, aimant la vie, tout en en voyant la vanité,' or, as a French reviewer condenses the delicate phrases of his author, 'homme du monde et de la bonne société, qui n'est, à proprement parler, ni blasé ni fatigué, mais qui sait en toutes choses garder la mesure, sans enthousiasme, sans indignation, et sans exaltation d'aucune espèce.' A speaking portrait of a Parisian philosophe, but does it fit the author of Ecclesiastes? No; Koheleth has had too hard a battle with his own tongue to be a 'charming writer,' and even if not exactly blasé (see however ii. 1-11), he is 'fatigued' enough with the oppressive burdens of Jewish life in the second century B.C. That he has no enthusiasm, and none of those visions which are the 'creators and feeders of the soul,'[2] is cause for pity, not for admiration; but that he has had no visitings of sæva indignatio, is an unjust inference from his acquired calmness of demeanour. He is an amiable egoïst, says M. Renan; but would Koheleth have troubled himself to write as he does, if egoïsm were the ripened fruit of his life's experience? Why does this critic give such generous sympathy to the Ecclesiastes of the Slav race,[3] and such doubtful praise to his great original? It is true, Koheleth seems to despair of the future, but only perhaps of the immediate future (iii. 21), and Turgenieff does this too. 'Will the right men come?' asks one of the personages of Turgenieff's Helen, and his friend, as the only reply, directs a questioning look into the distance. That is the Russian philosopher's last word; Koheleth has not told us his. His literary executors, no doubt, have forced a last word upon him; but we have an equal right to imagine one for ourselves. M. Renan 'likes to dream of a Paul become sceptical and dis-*
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