than eight major scales. By a sequence of improvements, in which
two Frenchmen named Cousineau took an important part, the
various defects inherent in Hochbrucker’s plan became ameliorated.
The pedals were doubled, and, the tuning of the instrument being
changed from the key of E♭ to C♭, it became possible to play in
fifteen keys, thus exceeding the power of the keyboard instruments,
over which the harp has another important advantage in the simplicity
of the fingering, which is the same for every key.
 |
| Fig. 5. Modern Erard Harp. |
It is to Sebastian Erard we owe the perfecting of the pedal harp (fig. 5), a triumph he gained in Paris by unremitting studies begun when he adopted a “fork” mechanism in 1786 and ended in 1810 when he had attained complete success with the double action pedal mechanism already described above. Erard’s merit was not confined to this improvement only; he modified the structure of the comb that conceals the mechanism, and constructed the sound-body of the instrument upon a modern principle more advantageous to the tone.
Notwithstanding these improvements and the great beauty of tone the harp possesses, the domestic use of it in modern times has almost disappeared. The great cost of a good harp, and the trouble to many amateurs of tuning, may have led to the supplanting of the harp by the more convenient and useful pianoforte. With this comes naturally a diminution in the number of solo-players on the instrument. Were it not for the increasing use of the harp in the orchestra, the colour of its tone having attracted the masters of instrumentation, so that the great scores of Meyerbeer and Gounod, of Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner are not complete without it, we should perhaps know little more of the harp than of the dulcimer, in spite of the efforts of distinguished virtuosi whose devotion to their instrument maintains its technique on an equality with that of any other, even the most in public favour. The first record of the use of harps in the orchestra occurs in the account of the Ballet comique de la royne performed at the château de Moutiers on the occasion of the marriage of Mary of Lorraine with the duc de Joyeuse in 1581, when harps formed part of the concert de musique.
See in addition to the works already referred to, Engel’s Musical Instruments in the South Kensington Museum (1874); and the articles “Harp,” in Rees’s Cyclopaedia, written by Dr Burney, in Stainer and Barrett’s Dictionary of Musical Terms (1876), and in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians. On the origins of the instrument see Proceedings of British Association (1904) (address of president of anthropological section). (K. S.; A. J. H.)
HARPENDEN, an urban district in the Mid or St Albans parliamentary division of Hertfordshire, England, 25 m. N.W. by N. from London by the Midland railway, served also by a branch of the Great Northern railway. Pop. (1901) 4725. It is a favourite outlying residential district for those whose work lies in London. The church of St Nicholas is a modern reconstruction with the exception of the Perpendicular tower. In the Lawes Testimonial Laboratory there is a vast collection of samples of experimentally grown produce, annual products, ashes and soils. Sir John Bennet Lawes (d. 1900) provided an endowment of £100,000 for the perpetuation of the agricultural experiments which he inaugurated here at his seat of Rothamsted Park. The success of his association of chemistry with botany is shown by the fact that soil has been made to bear wheat without intermission for upwards of half a century without manure. The country neighbouring to Harpenden is very pleasant, including the gorse-covered Harpenden Common and the narrow well-wooded valley of the upper Lea.
HARPER’S FERRY, a town of Jefferson county, West
Virginia, U.S.A., finely situated at the confluence of the Potomac
and Shenandoah rivers (which here pass through a beautiful
gorge in the Blue Ridge), 55 m. N.W. of Washington. Pop.
(1900) 896; (1910) 766. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio
railway, which crosses the Potomac here, by the Winchester &
Potomac railway (Baltimore & Ohio) of which it is a terminus,
and by boats on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, which passes
along the Maryland side of the Potomac. Across the Potomac
on the north rise the Maryland Heights; across the Shenandoah,
on the West Virginia side, the Virginia or Loudoun Heights;
and behind the town to the W. the Bolivar Heights. A United
States arsenal and armoury were established at Harper’s Ferry
in 1796, the site being chosen because of the good water-power;
these were seized on the 16th of October 1859 by John Brown
(q.v.), the abolitionist, and some 21 of his followers. For four
months before the raid Brown and his men lived on the Kennedy
Farm, in Washington county, Maryland, about 4 m. N.W. of
Harper’s Ferry. The engine-house in which Brown was captured
was exhibited at the Columbian Exposition at Chicago and was
later rebuilt on Bolivar Heights; a marble pillar, marked
“John Brown’s Fort,” has been erected on its original site.
On Camp Hill is Storer College (state-aided), a normal school for
negroes, which was established under Free Baptist control in
1867, and has academic, normal, biblical, musical and industrial
departments.
The first settlement here was made about 1747 by Robert Harper, who ran a ferry across the Potomac. The position of Harper’s Ferry at the lower end of the Shenandoah Valley rendered it a place of strategic importance during the Civil War. On the 18th of April 1861, the day after Virginia passed her ordinance of secession, when a considerable force of Virginia militia under General Kenton Harper approached the town—an attack having been planned in Richmond two days before—the Federal garrison of 45 men under Lieutenant Roger Jones set fire to the arsenal and fled. Within the next few days large numbers of Confederate volunteers assembled here; and Harper was succeeded in command (27th April) by “Stonewall” Jackson, who was in turn succeeded by Brigadier-General Joseph E. Johnston on the 23rd of May. Johnston thought that the place was unimportant, and withdrew when (15th June) the Federal forces under General Robert Patterson and Colonel Lew Wallace approached, and Harper’s Ferry was again occupied by a Federal garrison. In September 1862, during General Lee’s first invasion of the North, General McClellan advised that the place be abandoned in order that the 10,000 men defending it might be added to his fighting force, but General Halleck would not consent, so that when Lee needed supplies from the Shenandoah Valley he was blocked by the garrison, then under the command of Colonel Dixon S. Miles. On Jackson’s approach they were distributed as follows: about 7000 men on Bolivar Heights, about 2000 on Maryland Heights, and about 1800 on the lower ground. On the 13th of September General Lafayette McLaws carried Maryland Heights and General John G. Walker planted a battery on Loudoun Heights. On the 14th there was some fighting, but early on the 15th, as Jackson was about to make an assault on Bolivar Heights, the garrison, surrounded by a superior force, surrendered. The total Federal loss (including the garrisons at Winchester and Martinsburg) amounted to 44 killed (the commander was mortally wounded), 12,520 prisoners, and 13,000 small arms. For this terrible loss to the Union army the responsibility seems to have been General Halleck’s, though the blame was officially put on Colonel Miles, who died immediately after the surrender. Jackson rejoined Lee on the following day in time to take part in the battle of Antietam, and after the battle General McClellan placed a strong garrison (the 12th Corps) at Harper’s Ferry. In June 1863 the place was again abandoned to the Confederates on their march to Pennsylvania. After their defeat at Gettysburg, the town again fell into the hands of the Federal troops, and it remained in their possession until the end of the war. On the 4th of July 1864 General Franz Sigel, who was then in command here, withdrew his troops to Maryland Heights, and from there resisted Early’s attempt to enter the town and to drive the Federal garrison from Maryland Heights. Harper’s Ferry was seriously damaged by a flood in the Shenandoah in October 1878.
HARPIES (Gr. Ἅρπυιαι, older form Ἀρέπυιαι, “swift robbers”), in ancient mythology, the personification of the sweeping storm-winds. In Homer, where they appear indifferently under the name of ἄρπυιαι and θύελλαι, their function is to carry off those whose sudden disappearance is desired by the gods. Only one of them is there mentioned (Iliad, xvi. 150) by name, Podargē, the mother of the coursers of Achilles by Zephyrus, the generative wind. According to Hesiod (Theog. 265) they are two in number, Aëllo and Ocypetē, daughters of Thaumas and Electra, winged
