PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

IN this re-issue of the first volume of the Commentary on the Psalms, some variation from the exact text of the original edition has been deemed necessary.

There have been a few omissions. All the scattered references to promised Dissertations and Appendices which were never completed have been expunged, and some errors of textual criticism have also been withdrawn, besides much incidental correction of casual faults of type or supervision.

But the chief difference between this edition and its predecessor consists in the additional matter, amounting to forty pages.

The seven earliest Psalms, as Dr. Neale mentions in his preface, were originally contributed as papers to a magazine, and were therefore much less elaborated than the subsequent ones, undertaken when once the idea of a formal commentary had been adopted. And up to the twenty-second Psalm, many of the most important expositors had not yet been drawn upon for materials. Further, the authorities consulted upon points of Hebrew criticism were all old and some obsolete, and it seemed desirable to bring the results of fuller scholarship to bear upon many passages. And there was room for much additional information in the account of Uses and Antiphons prefixed to each of the Psalms, as well as in the Collects subjoined to them. All these details have been considered in the present edition, and some pains have been taken to make the new portions as pithy and suggestive as may be, to avoid any undue increase of bulk. The earlier part of the volume has necessarily been dwelt upon at greater length than the latter, on which Dr. Neale himself lavished more care and erudition; and to avoid any doubt as to his annotations, the new portions have been uniformly inclosed within square brackets, except in the liturgical details prefixed to the several Psalms, where no attempt has been made to discriminate between original and supplementary matter.

R. F. L.

LONDON, June, 1869.