Kircher was the inventor of the Æolian harp, which he thus describes in his Musurgia, (lib. ix. 352.):—The instrument is not only new, but agreeable, and very easy of construction, and every one admires it who hears it in my museum. It is silent while the window remains shut, but when this is opened, sudden bursts of harmony surprise the auditor, who cannot tell whence they proceed, or by what kind of instrument they are produced, the sounds not resembling those of a stringed or a wind instrument, but are a mixture of both. This instrument is made of deal, is fifteen inches long, six broad, and three deep. It may be strung with fifteen strings, or more, all equal, and of catgut.
This work, says Dr. Burney, speaking of the Musurgia, which undoubtedly contains many curious and amusing portions, is, however, disgraced by the author’s credulity and ill-founded assertions. Kircher has been truly called ‘Vir immensæ quidem, sed indigestæ eruditionis’—a man of immense but indigested learning. Yet, with all its imperfections, the Musurgia contains much ‘curious and useful information for such as know how to sift truth from falsehood, and usefulness from futility;’ for a considerable portion of which, however, he was indebted to the Harmonie Universelle of Mersenne, which appeared in 1636; the Musurgia not having been published till fourteen years later.
OTTO ON VIOLINS[72], &c.
THE professed object of M. Otto’s work is to guard purchasers of violins, &c., against imposition, and to show how such instruments may be kept in order and repaired. But it is quite clear that he has prudently had the main chance in view, and, while thinking of the interests of others, has not been unmindful of his own, for he takes especial care to let his readers into the history of his business, where he and his sons reside, and what—of course for ‘a consideration’—they undertake to do in the way of trade.
But while advertising himself and Co.—perhaps very justifiably—he has embodied in his pages a number of facts interesting to amateur players, highly useful to professional performers, and curious to all whose pursuits lead them to inquire into the state of the mechanical arts, among which is to be reckoned the manufacture of musical instruments; and if he has really taught ‘the best means of preserving a good instrument, and of improving a spoiled one,’[73] he has rendered a service which entitles him to the gratitude of the musical world.
Many of our readers will be surprised to learn that a really good, a complete violin, consists of fifty-eight different parts, which the author thus describes:—
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