inequalities were more conspicuous. To make a more perfect scale and
equalize the tension was the merit and achievement of John Broadwood,
who joined to his own practical knowledge and sound intuitions the aid
of professed men of science. The result was the divided bridge, the bass
strings being carried over the shorter division, and the most beautiful
grand pianoforte in its lines and curves that has ever been made was
then manufactured. In 1791 he carried his scale up to C, five and a
half octaves; in 1794 down to C, six octaves, always with care for the
artistic, form. The pedals were attached to the front legs of the stand
on which the instrument rested. The right foot-pedal acted first as
the piano register, shifting the impact of each hammer to two unisons
instead of three; a wooden stop in the right hand key-block permitted
the action to be shifted yet further to the right, and reducing the blow
to one string only, produced the pianissimo register or _una corda_ of
indescribable attractiveness of sound. The cause of this was in the
reflected vibration through the bridge to the untouched strings. The
present school of pianoforte playing rejects this effect altogether, but
Beethoven valued it, and indicated its use in some of his great works.
Steibert called the _una corda_ the _celeste_, which is more appropriate
to it than Adam's application of this name to the harp-stop, by which
the latter has gone ever since.

Up to quite the end of the last century the dampers were continued to
the highest note in the treble. They were like harpsichord dampers
raised by wooden jacks, with a rail or stretcher to regulate their rise,
which served also as a back touch to the keys. I have not discovered the
exact year when, or by whom, the treble dampers were first omitted,
thus leaving that part of the scale undamped. This bold act gave the
instrument many sympathetic strings free to vibrate from the bridge when
the rest of the instrument was played, each string, according to its