intelligent person doubts it, it is either because he does not know that age, or because he does not know this age.

The spinet expanded into the harpsichord, the leading instrument from 1700 to 1800. A harpsichord was nothing but a very large and powerful spinet. Some of them had two strings for each note; some had three; some had three kinds of strings, catgut, brass, and steel; and some were painted and decorated in the most gorgeous style. Frederick the Great had one made for him in London, with silver hinges, silver pedals, inlaid case, and tortoise-shell front, at a cost of two hundred guineas. Every part of the construction of the spinet was improved, and many new minor devices were added; but the harpsichord, in its best estate, was nothing but a spinet, because its strings were always twanged by a piece of quill. How astonished would an audience be to hear a harpsichord of 1750, and to be informed that such an instrument Handel felt himself fortunate to possess !

Next, the piano, - invented at Florence in 1710, by Bartolommeo Cristofali.

The essential difference between a harpsichord and a piano is described by the first name given to the piano, which was hammer-harpsichord, i. e. a harpsichord the strings of which were struck by hammers, not twanged by quills. The next name given to it was forte-piano, which signified soft, with power; and this name became piano-forte, which it still retains. One hundred years were required to prove to the musical public the value of an invention without which no further development of stringed instruments had been possible. No improvement in the mere mechanism of the harpsichord could ever have overcome the trivial effect of the twanging of the strings by pieces of quill; but the moment the hammer principle was introduced, nothing was wanting but improved mechanism to make it universal. It required, however, a century to produce the improvements sufficient to give the piano equal standing with

the harpsichord. The first pianos gave forth a dull and feeble sound to ears accustomed to the clear and harp-like notes of the fashionable instrument.

In that same upper room of the Messrs. Chickering, near the spinet just mentioned, there is an instrument, made perhaps about the year 1800, which explains why the piano was so slow in making its way. It resembles in form and size a grand piano of the present time, though of coarsest finish and most primitive construction, with thin, square, kitchen-table legs, and wooden knobs for castors. This interesting instrument has two rows of keys, and is both a harpsichord and a piano, -one set of keys twanging the wires, and the other set striking them. The effect of the piano notes is so faint and dull, that we cannot wonder at the general preference for the harpsichord for so many years. It appears to have been a common thing in the last century to combine two or more instruments in one. Dr. Charles Burney, writing in 1770, mentions "a very curious keyed instrument" made under the direction of Frederick II. of Prussia. "It is in shape like a large clavichord, has several changes of stops, and is occasionally a harp, a harpsichord, a lute, or piano-forte; but the most curious property of this instrument is, that, by drawing out the keys, the hammers are transferred to different strings. By which means a composition may be transposed half a note, a whole note, or a flat third lower at pleasure, without the embarrassment of different notes or clefs, real or imaginary.”

The same sprightly author tells us of "a fine Rucker harpsichord, which he has had painted inside and out with as much delicacy as the finest coach, or even snuff-box, I ever saw at Paris. On the outside is the birth of Venus; and on the inside of the cover, the story of Rameau's most famous opera, Castor and Pollux. Earth, Hell, and Elysium are there represented; in Elysium, sitting on a bank, with a lyre in his hand, is that celebrated composer himself."

This gay instrument was at Paris. In Italy, the native home of music, the keyed instruments, in 1770, Dr. Burney says, were exceedingly inferior to those of the North of Europe. "Throughout Italy, they have generally little octave spinets to accompany singing in private houses, sometimes in a triangular form, but more frequently in the shape of an old virginal; of which the keys are so noisy and the tone is so feeble, that more wood is heard than wire. I found three English harpsichords in the three principal cities of Italy, which are regarded by the Italians as so many phenomena.”

To this day Italy depends upon foreign countries for her best musical instruments. Italy can as little make a grand piano as America can compose a grand opera.

The history of the piano from 1710 to 1867 is nothing but a history of the improved mechanism of the instrument. The moment the idea was conceived of striking the strings with hammers, unlimited improvement was possible; and though the piano of to-day is covered all over with ingenious devices, the great, essential improvements are few in number. The hammer, for example, may contain one hundred ingenuities, but they are all included in the device of covering the first wooden hammers with cloth; and the master-thought of making the whole frame of the piano of iron suggested the line of improvement which secures the supremacy of the piano over all other stringed instruments forever.

Sebastian Erard, the son of a Strasbourg upholsterer, went to Paris, a poor orphan of sixteen, in the year 1768, and, finding employment in the establishment of a harpsichord-maker, rose rapidly to the foremanship of the shop, and was soon in business for himself as a maker of harpsichords, harps, and pianos. To him, perhaps, more than to any other individual, the fine interior mechanism of the piano is indebted; and the house founded by Sebastian Erard still produces the pianos which enjoy the most extensive

reputation in the Old World. He may be said to have created the "action" of the piano, though his devices have been subsequently improved upon by others. He found the piano in 1768 feeble and unknown; he left it, at his death in 1831, the most powerful, pleasing, and popular stringed instrument in existence; and, besides gaining a colossal fortune for himself, he bequeathed to his nephew, Pierre Erard, the most celebrated manufactory of pianos in the world. Next to Erard ranks John Broadwood, a Scotchman, who came to London about the time of Erard's arrival in Paris, and, like him, procured employment with a harpsichord-maker, the most noted one in England. John Broadwood was a “good apprentice," married his master's daughter, inherited his business, and carried it on with such success, that, to-day, the house of Broadwood and Sons is the first of its line in England. John Broadwood was chiefly meritorious for a general improvement in the construction of the instrument. If he did not originate many important devices, he was eager to adopt those of others, and he made the whole instrument with British thoroughness. The strings, the action, the case, the pedals, and all the numberless details of mechanism received his thoughtful attention, and show to the present time traces of his honest and intelligent mind. It was in this John Broadwood's factory that a poor German boy named John Jacob Astor earned the few pounds that paid his passage to America, and bought the seven flutes which were the foundation of the great Astor estate. For several years, the sale of the Broadwood pianos in New York was an important part of Mr. Astor's business. He used to sell his furs in London, and invest part of the proceeds in pianos, for exportation to New York.

America began early to try her hand at improving the instrument. Mr. Jefferson, in the year 1800, in one of his letters to his daughter Martha, speaks of "a very ingenious, modest, and poor young man" in Philadelphia, who " has

invented one of the prettiest improvements in the forte-piano I have ever seen." Mr. Jefferson, who was himself a player upon the violin, and had some little skill upon the harpsichord, adds, "It has tempted me to engage one for Monticello." This instrument was an upright piano, and we have found no mention of an upright of an earlier date. "His strings," says Mr. Jefferson, "are perpendicular, and he contrives within that height" (not given in the published extract) "to give his strings the same length as in the grand forte-piano, and fixes his three unisons to the same screw, which screw is in the direction of the strings, and therefore never yields. It scarcely gets out of tune at all, and then, for the most part, the three unisons are tuned at once." This is an interesting passage; for, although the "forte-pianos" of this modest young man have left no trace upon the history of the instrument, it shows that America had no sooner cast an eye upon its mechanism than she set to work improving it. Can it be that the upright piano was an American invention? It may be. The Messrs. Broadwood, in the little book which lay upon their pianos in the Exhibition of 1851, say that the first vertical or cabinet pianos were constructed by William Southwell, of their house, in 1804, four years after the date of Mr. Jefferson's letter.

After 1800 there were a few pianos made every year in the United States, but none that could compare with the best Erards and Broadwoods, until the Chickering era, which began in 1823.

The two Americans to whom music is most indebted in the United States are Jonas Chickering, piano-maker, born in New Hampshire in 1798, and Lowell Mason, singing teacher and composer of church tunes, born in Massachusetts in 1792. While Lowell Mason was creating the taste for music, Jonas Chickering was improving the instrument by which musical taste is chiefly gratified; and both being established in Boston, each of them was instrumental in advancing the fortunes of the

Both

other. Mr. Mason recommended the Chickering piano to his multitudinous classes and choirs, and thus powerfully aided to give that extent to Mr. Chickering's business which is necessary to the production of the best work. of them began their musical career, we may say, in childhood; for Jonas Chickering was only a cabinet-maker's apprentice when he astonished his native village by putting in excellent playing order a battered old piano, long before laid aside; and Lowell Mason, at sixteen, was already leading a large church choir, and drilling a brass band. The undertaking of this brass band by a boy was an amusing instance of Yankee audacity; for when the youth presented himself to the newly formed band to give them their first lesson, he found so many instruments in their hands which he had never seen nor heard of, that he could not proceed. "Gentlemen," said he, "I see that a good many of your instruments are out of order, and most of them need a little oil, or something of the kind. Our best plan will be to adjourn for a week. Leave all your instruments with me, and I will have them in perfect condition by the time we meet again." Before the band again came together, the young teacher, by working night and day, had gained a sufficient insight into the nature of the instruments to instruct those who knew nothing of them.

Jonas Chickering was essentially a mechanic, -a most skilful, patient, thoughtful, faithful mechanic, — and it was his excellence as a mechanic which enabled him to rear an establishment which, beginning with one or two pianos a month, was producing, at the death of the founder, in 1853, fifteen hundred pianos a year. It was he who introduced into the piano the full iron frame. It was he who first made American pianos that were equal to the best imported ones. He is universally recognized as the true founder of the manufacture of the piano in the United States. No man has, perhaps, so nobly illustrated the character of the Ameri

can mechanic, or more honored the name of American citizen. He was the soul of benevolence, truth, and honor. When we have recovered a little more from the infatuation which invests "public men" with supreme importance, we shall better know how to value those heroes of the apron, who, by a life of conscientious, toil, place a new source of happiness, or of force, within the reach of their fellow-citizens.

Henry Steinway, the founder of the great house of Steinway and Sons, has had a career not unlike that of Mr. Chickering. He also, in his native Brunswick, amused his boyhood by repairing old instruments of music, and making new ones. He made a cithara and a guitar for himself with only such tools as a boy can command. He also was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker, and was drawn away, by natural bias, from the business he had learned, to the making of organs and pianos. For many years he was a German pianomaker, producing, in the slow, German manner, two or three excellent instruments a month; striving ever after higher excellence, and growing more and more dissatisfied with the limited sphere in which the inhabitant of a small German state necessarily works. In 1849, being then past fifty years of age, and the father of four intelligent and gifted sons, he looked to America for a wider range and a more promising home for his boys. With German prudence, he sent one of them to New York to see what prospect there might be there for another maker of pianos. Charles Steinway came, saw, approved, returned, reported; and in 1850 all the family reached New York, except the eldest son, Theodore, who succeeded to his father's business in Brunswick. Henry Steinway again showed himself wise in not immediately going into business. Depositing the capital he had brought with him in a safe place, he donned once more the journeyman's apron, and worked for three years in a New York piano factory to learn the ways of the trade in America; and his sons obtained similar employment,

one of them, fortunately, becoming a tuner, which brought him into relations with many music-teachers. During these three years, their knowledge and their capital increased every day, for they lived as wise men in such circumstances do live who mean to control their destiny. In plain English, they kept their eyes open, and lived on half their income. In 1853, in a small back shop in Varick Street, with infinite pains, they made their first piano, and a number of teachers and amateurs were invited to listen to it. It was warmly approved and speedily sold. Ten men were employed, who produced for the next two years one piano a week. In 1855, the Messrs. Steinway, still unknown to the public, placed one of their best instruments in the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition. A member of the musical jury has recorded the scene which occurred when the jury came to this unknown competitor :

"They were pursuing their rounds, and performing their duties with an ease and facility that promised a speedy termination to their labors, when suddenly they came upon an instrument that, from its external appearance, solidly rich, yet free from the frippery that was then rather in fashion, attracted their attention. One of the company opened the case, and carelessly struck a few chords. The others were doing the same with its neighbors, but somehow they ceased to chatter when the other instrument began to speak. One by one the jurors gathered round the strange polyphonist, and, without a word being spoken, every one knew that it was the best piano-forte in the Exhibition. The jurors were true to their duties. It is possible that some of them had predilections in favor of other makers; it is certain that one of them had, the writer of the present notice. But when the time for the award came, there was no argument, no discussion, no bare presentment of minor claims; nothing, in fact, but a hearty indorsement of the singular merits of the strange instrument."

From that time the Steinways made

rapid progress. The tide of California gold was flowing in, and every day some one was getting rich enough to treat his family to a new piano. It was the Messrs. Steinway who chiefly supplied the new demand, without lessening by one instrument a month the business of older houses. Various improvements in the framing and mechanism of.the piano have been invented and introduced by them; and, while some members of the family have superintended the manufacture, others have conducted the not less difficult business of selling. To this hour, the father of the family, in the dress of a workman, attends daily at the factory, as vigilant and active as ever, though now past seventy; and his surviving sons are as laboriously engaged in assisting him as they were in the infancy of the estab

lishment.

Besides the Chickerings and the Steinways, there are twenty manufacturers in the United States whose production exceeds one hundred pianos per annum. Messrs. Knabe & Co. of Baltimore, who supply large portions of the South and West, sold about a thousand pianos in the year 1866; W. P. Emerson of Boston, 935; Messrs. Haines Brothers of New York, 830; Messrs. Hallett and Davis of Boston, 462; Ernest Gabler of New York, 312; Messrs. E. C. Lighte & Co. of New York, 286; Messrs. Hazelton and Brothers of New York, 269; Albert Webber of New York, 266; Messrs. Decker Brothers of New York, 256; Messrs. George Steck and Co. of New York, 244 ; W. I. Bradbury of New York, 244 ; Messrs. Lindeman and Sons of New York, 223; the New York Piano-forte Company, 139. About one half of all the pianos made in the United States are made in the city of New York.

To visit one of our large manufactories of pianos is a lesson in the noble art of taking pains. Genius itself, says Carlyle, means, first of all, "a transcendent capacity for taking trouble." Everywhere in these vast and interesting establishments we find what we may call the perfection of painstaking.

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The construction of an American piano is a continual act of defensive warfare against the future inroads of our climate, a climate which is polar for a few days in January, tropical for a week or two in July, Nova-Scotian now and then in November, and at all times most trying to the finer woods, leathers, and fabrics. To make a piano is now not so difficult; but to make one that will stand in America, - that is very difficult. In the rear of the Messrs. Steinway's factory there is a yard for seasoning timber, which usually contains an amount of material equal to two hundred and fifty thousand ordinary boards, an inch thick and twelve feet long; and there it remains from four months to five years, according to its nature and magnitude. Most of the timber used in an American piano requires two years' seasoning at least. From this yard it is transferred to the steam-drying house, where it remains subjected to a high temperature for three months. The wood has then lost nearly all the warp there ever was in it, and the temperature may change fifty degrees in twelve hours (as it does sometimes in New York) without seriously affecting a fibre. Besides this, the timber is sawed in such a manner as to neutralize, in some degree, its tendency to warp, or, rather, so as to make it warp the right way. The reader would be surprised to hear the great makers converse on this subject of the warping of timber. They have studied the laws which govern warping; they know why wood warps, how each variety warps, how long a time each kind continues to warp, and how to fit one warp against another, so as to neutralize both. If two or more pieces of wood are to be glued together, it is never done at random; but they are so adjusted that one will tend to warp one way, and another another. Even the thin veneers upon the case act as a restraining force upon the baser wood which they cover, and in some parts of the instrument the veneer is double for the purpose of keeping both in order. An astonishing amount of thought and experiment has