794 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



times must have had a fashion of drawing largely upon their imagi- 

 nation, or else some elements of human nature must have changed 

 since then, for they all remarked the influence of music upon the 

 manners of a people. If the crude musical system they were ac- 

 quainted with, with its primitive instruments, was capable of such 

 effects as they claimed, an interesting proposition is suggested for 

 some student to elaborate — namely, are the people of the present 

 less sensitive and less open to the influence of music — though 

 having an incomparably superior system — than the ancients ? 

 This remains for some speculative and subtle mind to deter- 

 mine. Lyres, cithares, and incidental stringed instruments of that 



order have meanwhile 

 become obsolete, while 

 the dulcimer has no place 

 in art. The harp has, 

 however, come down to 

 us through the centuries 

 in an enlarged and vastly 

 improved form as the 

 most honored and most 

 historic of all musical in- 

 struments. It is not so 

 important, indeed, as the 

 piano and parlor organ, 

 and consequently could 

 not have been treated in 

 our previous articles with 

 - consistency, although it 

 was a precursor, in its 

 primitive forms, of the 

 piano -forte and entitled 

 to mention. 



Tlie harp in its present 

 form is capable of fine 

 artistic effects, and is in 

 most respects far different 

 from the rude instrujnent 

 of that species known in 

 remote centuries. There 

 are many kinds of harps produced, namely, the Welsh harp, which 

 contains three rows of strings ; the double harp, having two rows; 

 the single-action pedal instrument and the double-action pedal 

 harp, with one set— the latter being the most successful and 

 artistic instrument of all. In fact, the single- and double-ac- 

 tion pedal harps are generally used in musical circles to the ex 

 elusion of the two former. 



Fig. 1. — Modern Docble-pedal Harp. 



