Quin, and the actors of his day, used to give to the first vowel in ‘Cato’ the sound of the a in ‘father’.  They probably thought that they were Italianizing such names.  In fact their use was neither Latin nor English.  They were like the men of to-day who speak of the town opposite Dover as ‘Cally’, a name neither French nor English.  A town which once sent members to the English Parliament has a right to an English name.  Prior rhymed it with ‘Alice’ and Browning has

  When Fortune’s malice
  Lost her Calais.

Shakespeare, of course, spelt it ‘Callis’, and this form, which was first evicted by Pope, whom other editors servilely followed, ought to be restored to Shakespeare’s text.  In the pronunciation of Cato the stage regained the English diphthong in the mouth of Garrick, whose good sense was often in evidence.  It is recorded that his example was not at once followed in Scotland or Ireland.  If there was any Highlander on the stage it may be hoped that he gave to the vowel the true Latin sound as it appears in ‘Mactavish’.

A once well-known schoolmaster, a correspondent of Conington’s, had a daughter born to him whom in his unregenerate days he christened Rosa.  At a later time he became a purist in quantities, and then he shortened the o and took the voice out of the s and spoke of her and to her as Rossa.  The mother and the sisters refused to acknowledge what they regarded as a touch of shamrock and clung persistently to the English flower.  The good gentleman did not call his son Sol[=o]mon,[2] though this is the form which ought to be used by those who turn the traditional English ‘Elk[)a]nah’ into ‘Elk[=a]nah’, ‘Ab[)a]na’ into ‘Ab[=a]na’, and ‘Zeb[)u]lun’ into ‘Zeb[=u]lun’.  If they do not know

  Poor Elk[)a]nah, all other troubles past,
  For bread in Smithfield dragons hiss’d at last,

yet at least they ought to know

  Of Abb[)a]na and Pharphar, lucid streams.

The malison of Milton on their heads!  If the translators of the Bible had foreseen ‘Zeb[=u]lun’, they would have chosen some other word than ‘princes’ to avoid the cacophony of ‘the princes of Zeb[=u]lun’.

[Footnote 2:  But pedantry would not suggest this.  The New Testament has [Greek:  Solom[^o]n], and the Latin Christian poets have the o short.  True, the Vatican Septuagint has [Greek:  Sal[^o]m[^o]n], but there the vowel of the first syllable is a.—­H.B.]

That these usages were familiar is evident from the pronunciation of proper, especially Biblical, names.  Thus ‘B[=a]bel’ and ‘B[)a]bylon’, ‘N[=i]nus’ and ‘N[)i]neveh’, were spoken as unconsciously as M[=i]chael’ and ‘M[)i]chaelmas’.  Nobody thought of asking the quantity of the Hebrew vowels before he spoke of ‘C[=a]leb’ and ‘B[=a]rak’, of ‘G[)i]deon’ and ‘G[)i]lead’, of ‘D[)e]borah’ and ‘Ab[)i]melech’, of ‘[=E]phraim’ and ‘B[=e]lial’.  The seeming exceptions can be explained.  Thus