ght and experiment in it. It
required half a century to exhaust the different kinds of wood, bone,
and cork; and when, about 1760, the idea was conceived of covering the
hammers with something soft, another century was to elapse before all
the leathers and fabrics had been tried, and felt found to be the _ne
plus ultra_. With regard to the action, or the mechanism by which the
hammers are made to strike the strings, we must refer the inquisitive
reader to the piano itself.

When all the parts have been placed in the case, the instrument falls
into the hands of the "regulator," who inspects, rectifies, tunes,
harmonizes, perfects the whole. Nothing then remains but to convey it to
the store, give it its final polish and its last tuning.

The next thing is to sell it. Six hundred and fifty dollars seems a high
price for a square piano, such as we used to buy for three hundred, and
the "natural cost" of which does not much exceed two hundred dollars.
Fifteen hundred dollars for a grand piano is also rather startling. But
how much tax, does the reader suppose, is paid upon a
fifteen-hundred-dollar grand? It is difficult to compute it; but it does
not fall much below two hundred dollars. The five per cent
manufacturer's tax, which is paid upon the price of the finished
instrument, has also to be paid upon various parts, such as the wire;
and upon the imported articles there is a high tariff. It is computed
that the taxes upon very complicated articles, in which a great variety
of materials are employed, such as carriages, pianos, organs, and fine
furniture, amount to about one eighth of the price. The piano, too, is
an expensive creature to keep, in these times of high rents, and its
fare upon a railroad is higher than that of its owner. We saw, however,
a magnificent piano, the other day, at the establishment of Messrs.
Chickering, in Broadway, for which passage had been secured all the way
to Oregon for thirty-five dollars,--only five dollars more than it would
cost to transport it to Chicago. Happily for us, to whom fifteen hundred
dollars--nay, six hundred and fifty dollars--is an enormous sum of
money, a very good second-hand piano is always attainable for less than
half the original price.

For, reader, you must know that the ostentation of the rich is always
putting costly pleasures within the reach of the refined not-rich. A
piano in its time plays many parts, and figures in a variety of scenes.
Like the more deli