C. As in all Celtie harps, the left is the treble hand, and in the triple harps there are 27 strings on that side, the right or bass hand having 37, and the middle or chromatic row 34.
Turning to the modern ‘harp, the first pattern of it is discovered in German ard Anglo-Saxon illuminated MSS. as far back as the 9th century. <A diatonic instru- ment, it must have been common throughout Europe, as Orcagna, Fra Angelico, and other famous Italian painters depict it over and over again in their masterpieces. No accidental semitones were possible with this instrument, unless the strings were shortened by the player’s finger. This lasted until the 17th century, when a Tyrolese maker adapted hooks (perhaps suggested by the fretted or bonded clavichord) that, screwed into the neck, could be turned downwards to fix the desired semitone at pleasure. At last, somewhere about 1720, Hochbrucker, a Bavarian, invented pedals that, acting through the pedestal of the instrument, governed by mechanism the stopping, and thus left the player’s hands free, an indisputable advantage ; and it became possible at once to play in no less than eight mijor 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 E9 to Cb, 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.
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Fig. 5.—Modern Erard Harp.
It is to Sebastian Erard we owe the perfecting of the pedal harp (fig. 5), a triumph be gained in Paris by un- remitting studies begun when he adopted a “fork” mechanism in 1786 and ended in 1810 when he had attained complete success. The mechanical perfection of Erard’s apparatus must be seen to be appresiated. The pedals give the extent of movement the disks perform from which the studs project that stop the strings, as it may be required to raise the string in pitch a half tone or a whole tons. Erard’s merit was not confined to this improvement only ; he modified the structure of the comb that conceals the mechanism, and constructed the sounl-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 has for years past been declining. The great cost of a good harp, and the trouble to many amateurs of tuning, my have led to the supplanting of the harp by the more convenient and useful pianoforte. With this comes natur- ally a diminution in the number of sclo-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 misters 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.
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 Cyclopedia, written by Dr Burney, in Stainer and Barrett’s Dictionary of Musical Terms, 1876, and in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1879.
HARPER’S FERRY, a post village of Jefferson county, West Virginia, United States, is grandly situated at the foot until the end of the war. of Bolivar heights and at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers, where they intersect the Blue Ridge, 45 miles N.W. of Washington. It is the junction-point of the Baltimore and Ohio and the Winchester and Potomac railways ; and the Ohio and Chesapeake canal passes along the Maryland side of the Potomac river. The village since the civil war has been in a decaying condition. It is the seat of Stover college, fur students of colour. Previous to the war Harper’s Ferry contained an extensive arsenal and armoury, and during the war it was the scene of several exploits which have given it a name in history. On the 16th October 1859 it was seized by John Brown, the cele- brated abolitionist, and a small handful of followers, but as he was unsupported by a rising of the slaves he was over- powered on the morning of the 18th and taken prisoner. On the 18th April 1861 it was captured by the Confede- rates, who on evacuating it in the following June destroyed the arsenal and armoury and the bridge across the Potomac. The village was afterwards held by a Union garrison of 12,000 men, who, however, on the 15th September 1862, after a brave resistance of several days, surrendered to a strong Confederate force under Jackson and A. YP. Hill. After the battle of Antietam, on the 17th of the same month, if was reoccupied by the army of the Potomac under General M‘Clellan,who left a strong garrison in the place. In June 1863 it 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, who held it until the demonstration against Washington in July 1864. After the battle of Monocacy on July 9th it was occupied by the United States forces, and held by them The most flourishing part of the town was nearly destroyed by a flood in the Shenandoah, October 1878. The population is about 2000.
