But Carew’s case is rather important; and it is really odd that his latest and most learned editor, the Rev. J.F.  Ebsworth, should fall into the old error.  In a “dedicatory prelude” to his edition of “The Poems and Masque of Thomas Carew” (London:  Reeves & Turner), Mr. Ebsworth writes as follows:—­

    “Hearken strains from one who knew
     How to praise and how to sue: 
     Celia’s lover, TOM CAREW.”

Thomas Carew (born April 3d, 1590, at Wickham, in Kent) was the son of Sir Matthew Carew, Master in Chancery, and the grandson of Sir Wymond Carew, of East Antony, or Antony St. Jacob, between the Lynher and Tamar rivers in Cornwall, where the family of Pole-Carew lives to this day.  Now, the Cornish Carews have always pronounced their name as “Carey,” though, as soon as you cross the Tamar and find yourself (let us say) as far east as Haccombe in South Devon, the name becomes “Carew”—­pronounced as it is written.  The two forms are both of great age, as the old rhyme bears witness—­

    “Carew, Carey and Courtenay,
     When the Conqueror came, were here at play”—­

and the name was often written “Carey” or “Cary,” as in the case of the famous Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland, and his descendants.  In Cornwall, however, where spelling is often an untrustworthy guide to pronunciation (I have known people to write their name “Hix” and pronounce it as “Hic”—­when sober, too), it was written “Carew” and pronounced as “Carey”; and there is not the slightest doubt that this was the case with our poet’s name.  If anyone deny it, let him consider the verse in which Carew is mentioned by his contemporaries:  and attempt, for instance, to scan the lines in Robert Baron’s “Pocula Castalia,” 1650—­

“Sweet Suckling then, the glory of the Bower Wherein I’ve wanton’d many a genial hour, Fair Plant! whom I have seen Minerva wear An ornament to her well-plaited hair, On highest days; remove a little from Thy excellent Carew! and thou, dearest Tom, Love’s Oracle! lay thee a little off Thy flourishing Suckling, that between you both I may find room....”

Or this by Suckling—­

“Tom Carew was next, but he had a fault, That would not well stand with a Laureat; His Muse was hard-bound, and th’ issue of ’s brain Was seldom brought forth but with trouble and pain.”

Or this, by Lord Falkland himself (who surely may be supposed to have known how the name was pronounced), in his “Eclogue on the Death of Ben Jonson”—­

“Let Digby, Carew, Killigrew and Maine, Godolphin, Waller, that inspired train—­ Or whose rare pen beside deserves the grace Or of an equal, or a neighbouring place—­ Answer thy wish, for none so fit appears To raise his Tomb, as who are left his heirs.”

In each case “Carey” scans admirably, while “Carew” gives the line an intolerable limp.