Beyond the spinet we find the which for a long time stood its ground. The citole, which was a little box, with wires on its lid. The magadis, which had its notes turned in octaves. And the clari chord, or dumb-spinet, which was much used in nunneries, having its wires wound round with silk; it yielded a pecu liarly soft, but low sound. This instru ment seems to have been in vogue for a great while ; though now extremely scarce, and only to be found in religious institutions on the Continent.
We must do the English manufacturers of the present age the justice of saying, that, for power and clearness of tone, freedom and certainty of motion, ele gance of finish, facility of touch, and standing in tune, they stand unrivalle•I throughout Europe. The names of Tom kinson and Kirkman, for grand pianos, and of Clementi and Broadwooi, for square pianos, stand eminently conspicu ous in this branch of mechanism ; but to obtain excellent instruments, even of their make, application should be made to them, and not to the paltry retailers of a few ; which, though made by those manufacturers, are of a very inferior de scription, suited to the low prices paid by such advertising gentry.
The Harp next claims our notice : its form and manner of performance being so well known, require but little descrip tion. The name of this instrument is supposed to be derived from the Arpi, a people of Italy, to whom its invention is, by many attributed ; though others as sert that the Arpi received it from the Irish. The Hebrew harp was said to be remarkable for its beauty, and for the great extent of its scale ; the latter was supposed to surpass that of the modern harp, which does not exceed five octaves. Ours is always tuned to the same pitch, generally E flat, and its semitones are made by a number of pedals, placed round the base, or plinth, on which it stands ; these communicate with the top piece by means of a hollow column in front of the strings; on being pressed by the foot, they cause the strings (which are chiefly made of what is usually called cat-gut, the gravest being of flock-silk, covered with fine wire) to be shortened by projecting tops, and thus to give a tolerable chromatic effect. The Irish, and the Welsh, used to be famous for their performance on the harp ; but, at present, only a few itinerant bards are to be found in those countries : these pre serve the tradition of many very appro priate national airs ; but their execution is not to be compared with those of our great masters : nor are their harps to be rated with those superb instruments masks by our best manufacturers, Brant, Erat, &c.
The antiquity of the harp appears to be as remote as it ie certain. The psal tery, called by the ancient Hebrews the nebel, seems to have been a kind of harp. The simi-cum of the ancient Greeks was of this species also. The epigonum was of very ancient date, beyond what we can trace ; it had forty strings; but its scale is certainly lost. The tripodian, invented by Pythagoras the Racyn thian, was a species of harp, on which three different keys, or modes, were prepared : by turning the tripod round with the foot, either side could be presented to the performer, who chang ed his key at pleasure. A vase at the top answered the purpose of a sounding board.
The Guitar, or Cittern, is much in use among the Spaniards, and their neigh bours ; it was also in vogue with us many years back ; when some improvements were made, particularly the addition of six keys, corresponding with the six wires ; these were called boxed guitars, and by some, piano-forte-guitars. The in strument, as we see it In England, has a broad neck, on which are various frets, made of wires, fixed into the finger board, at right angles with the wires ; these being the guides for the fingers to make the several notes, by pressing be tween the frets ; the bridge is very low, and stands behind a circular sound-hole, covered with an ornamented perfo rated plate ; the body of the guitar is of an oval form, the sides perpendicular to the belly and back. This instrument is strung peculiarly : the upper open note, G, is of.double steel wires, about No. 4: the second, X, is also double, No. 5 ; the thin:Lis of brass, double, and gives C ; the fourth is double, of brass, and gives GI, an octave below the upper wires ; the fifth is E, an octave below the second wires ; and the sixth is C, the octave be low the third. The two last are single wires, covered with very fine wire as close ly as possible, like the fourth strings of violins. The wires loop at the bottom to little ivory studs, and at the top to small steel studs, moving in grooves, each of them winding up with a watch-key, so as i to put them in time respectively. The Spanish guitar is strung with cat-gut part ly ; but the lower notes are, like those of the harp, made of floss silk, covered very closely with fine wire.