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.
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