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 stri