ter number are piano music pure and simple. It is not a very rare
occurrence for a new piece to have a sale of one hundred thousand copies
in the United States. A composer who can produce the kind of music that
pleases the greatest number, may derive a revenue from his art ten times
greater than Mozart or Beethoven enjoyed in their most prosperous time.
There are trifling waltzes and songs upon the list of Messrs. Ditson,
which have yielded more profit than Mozart received for "Don Giovanni"
and "The Magic Flute" together. We learn from the catalogue just
mentioned, that the composers of music have an advantage over the
authors of books, in being always able to secure a publisher for their
productions. Messrs. Ditson announce that they are ready and willing to
publish any piece of music by any composer on the following easy
conditions: "Three dollars per page for engraving; two dollars and a
half per hundred sheets of paper; and one dollar and a quarter per
hundred pages for printing." At the same time they frankly notify
ambitious teachers, that "not one piece in ten pays the cost of getting
up, and not one in fifty proves a success."

The piano, though its recent development has been so rapid, is the
growth of ages, and we can, for three thousand years or more, dimly and
imperfectly trace its growth. The instrument, indeed, has found an
historian,--Dr. Rimbault of London,--who has gathered the scattered
notices of its progress into a handsome quarto, now accessible in some
of our public libraries. It is far from our desire to make a display of
cheap erudition; yet perhaps ladies who love their piano may care to
spend a minute or two in learning how it came to be the splendid triumph
of human ingenuity, the precious addition to the happiness of existence,
which they now find it to be. "I have had my share of trouble," we heard
a lady say the other day, "but my piano has kept me happy." All ladies
who have had the virtue to subdue this noble instrument to their will,
can say something similar of the solace and joy they daily derive from
it. The Greek legend that the twang of Diana's bow suggested to Apollo
the invention of the lyre, was not a mere fancy; for the first stringed
instrument of which we have any trace in ancient sculpture differed from
an ordinary bow only in having more than one string. A two-stringed bow
was, perhaps, the first step towards the grand piano of to-day.
Additional strings involved the strengt