PLATE XXX.
BELL HARP AND HURDY-GURDY.
THE Bell Harp, although it appears in modern pre-Raphaelite paintings and is a kind of wire-strung psaltery, cannot be classed as a mediæval instrument, as it dates only from about the year 1700. Its invention is attributed to John Simcock, a soldier, who, judging from the label inside, probably gave the name of his superior officer to the instrument. It reads as follows:—"John Simcock, in the Right Honourable the Earl of Ancram's regiment of Dragoons, and in Captain Bell's troop, makes, mends, and sells the English harp; also instructs gentlemen in the best mode of playing that instrument." Robert, third Earl of Ancram, afterwards Marquis of Lothian, was appointed Colonel of the seventh regiment of Dragoons in 1696.
The Bell Harp here drawn belongs to Miss E.A. Willmott of Warley Place, Essex, as well as the Hurdy-Gurdy beneath it in the same Plate. It has four roses and fourteen notes of brass strings of four unisons to each. The extreme length of the sides is 21 inches; the breadth at the top is 65/8 inches, and at the bottom, 13½ inches. Simcock constructed bell harps with more notes, occasionally of three unisons to each, excepting the deepest note, which was one string only, spun over with wire. The scale of another of sixteen notes, made by John Simcock at Bath, as given by Engel, was—
The bell harp, like the zither, is sounded with a plectrum on each thumb, and the performer, while twanging the strings rapidly, holds the harp by wooden projections from the sides of the frame, and swings it upwards and downwards, to which action Grassineau (Musical Dictionary, London, 1740) attributes the name. This may have been so, but it is certain that the swinging motion could have no appreciable effect upon the tone. A few years ago a Frenchman played the bell harp in the streets of London, attracting audiences by the novelty of the instrument and the grace with which he swung it.
The Hurdy-Gurdy.
"With dead, dull, doleful, heavy hums,
With mournful moans, with grievous groans,
The sober hurdy-gurdy thrums."
These lines, from an Ode for St. Cecilia's Day, are said to have been set to music for ancient British instruments, by Arne. But they libel an instrument that has only failed from lack of inventors to attain to the development that has raised some of its former competitors to the consideration they are now held in. While the organistrum of the church became the vielle of the Jongleurs, passing into the chifonie and hurdy-gurdy of the common folk in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the dulcimer has been the precursor of the pianoforte. The hurdy-gurdy, although at one time transformed to a sostenente key-board instrument described by Evelyn, and as the "Geigenwerk" exciting the attention of J.S. Bach, has remained what it was. The latest improved vielle or hurdy-gurdy had the following key-board compass and tuning of the open strings—