hening of the bow that held them;
and, accordingly, we find the Egyptian harps, discovered in the
catacombs by Wilkinson, very thick and massive in the lower part of the
frame, which terminated sometimes in a large and solid female head. From
the two-stringed bow to these huge twelve-stringed Egyptian harps, six
feet high and beautifully finished with veneer, inlaid with ivory and
mother-of-pearl, no one can say how many centuries elapsed. The catgut
strings of the harps of three thousand years ago are still capable of
giving a musical sound. The best workmen of the present time, we are
assured, could not finish a harp more exquisitely than these are
finished; yet they have no mechanism for tightening or loosening the
strings, and no strings except such as were furnished by the harmless,
necessary cat. The Egyptian harp, with all its splendor of decoration,
was a rude and barbaric instrument.

It has not been shown that Greece or Rome added one essential
improvement to the stringed instruments which they derived from older
nations. The Chickerings, Steinways, Erards, and Broadwoods of our day
cannot lay a finger upon any part of a piano, and say that they owe it
to the Greeks or to the Romans.

The Cithara of the Middle Ages was a poor thing enough, in the form of a
large P, with ten strings in the oval part; but it had _movable pegs_,
and could be easily tuned. It was, therefore, a step toward the piano of
the French Exposition of 1867.

But the Psaltery was a great stride forward. This instrument was an
arrangement of _strings on a box_. Here we have the principle of the
sounding-board,--a thing of vital moment to the piano, and one upon
which the utmost care is bestowed by all the great makers. Whoever first
thought of stretching strings on a box may also be said to have half
invented the guitar and the violin. No single subsequent thought has
been so fruitful of consequences as this in the improvement of stringed
instruments. The reader, of course, will not confound the psaltery of
the Middle Ages with the psaltery of the Hebrews, respecting which
nothing is known. The translators of the Old Testament assigned the
names with which they were familiar to the musical instruments of the
Jews.

About the year 1200 we arrive at the Dulcimer, which was an immense
psaltery, with improvements. Upon a harp-shaped box, eighteen to
thirty-six feet long, fifty strings were stretched, which the player
struck with a stick or