I have not had time to refer other than incidentally to the square
pianoforte, which has become obsolete. I must, however, give a separate
historical sketch of the upright pianoforte, which has risen into
great favor and importance, and in its development--I may say its
invention--belongs to this present 19th century. The form has always
recommended the upright on the score of convenience, but it was long
before it occurred to any one to make an upright key board instrument
reasonably. Upright harpsichords were made nearly four hundred years
ago. A very interesting 17th century one was sold lately in the
great Hamilton sale--sold, I grieve to say, to be demolished for its
paintings. But all vertical harpsichords were horizontal ones, put on
end on a frame; and the book-case upright grand pianos, which, from the
eighties, were made right into the present century, were horizontal
grands similarly elevated. The real inventor of the upright piano, in
its modern and useful form, was that remarkable Englishman, John Isaac
Hawkins, the inventor of ever-pointed pencils; a civil engineer, poet,
preacher, and phrenologist. While living at Border Town, New Jersey, U.
S. A., Hawkins invented the cottage piano--portable grand, he called
it--and his father, Isaac Hawkins, to whom, in Grove's "Dictionary,"
I have attributed the invention, took out, in the year 1800[1], the
English patent for it. I can fortunately show you one of these original
pianinos, which belongs to Messrs. Broadwood. It is a wreck, but you
will discern that the strings descend nearly to the floor, while the
key-board, a folding one, is raised to a convenient height between the
floor and the upper extremities of the strings. Hawkins had an iron
frame and tension rods, within which the belly was entirely suspended;
a system of tuning by mechanical screws; an upper metal bridge; equal
length of string throughout; metal supports to the action, in which a
later help to the repetition was anticipated--the whole instrument being
independent of the case. Hawkins tried also a lately revived notion of