HARMONICA. This word, when originally appropriated by Dr Franklin to that peculiar form or mode of musical glasses which he himself, after a number of happy experiments, had constituted, was written armonica. In this place, however, we have ventured to restore it to its native plenitude of sound. It is derived from the Greek word α%μοv ∣ α. The radical word is aξpv, to suit or Jit one thing to another. By the word αgμowa the Greeks expressed aptitudes of various kinds; and from the use which they made of that expression, we have reason to conclude that it was intended to import the highest degree of refinement and delicacy in those relations which it was meant to indicate. Relations or aptitudes of sound, in particular, were understood by it; and in this view Dr Franklin could not have selected a name more expressive of its nature and genius, for the instrument which we are now to describe; as, perhaps, no musical tones can be finer, or susceptible of juster concords, than those which it produces.

The doctor, in his letter to Beccaria, has given a minute account of the harmonica; nor does it appear that his successors have either sensibly improved, or more accurately delineated, that instrument. The detail of his own improvements, therefore, shall be given in his own words.

“Perhaps,” says he, “it may be agreeable to you, as you live in a musical country, to have an account of the new instrument lately added here to the great number that charming science was possessed of before. As it is an instrument that seems peculiarly adapted to Italian music, especially that of the soft and plaintive kind, I will endeavour to give you such a description of it, and of the manner of constructing it, that you or any of your friends may be enabled to imitate it, if you incline so to do, without being at the expense and trouble of the many experiments I have made in endeavouring to bring it to its present perfection.

“You have doubtless heard the sweet tone that is drawn from a drinking glass, by pressing a wet finger round its brim. One Mr Puckeridge, a gentleman from Ireland, was the first who thought of playing tunes formed of these tones. He collected a number of glasses of different sizes; fixed them near each other on a table; and tuned them, by putting into them water, more or less as each note required. The tones were brought out by pressing his fingers round their brims. He was unfortunately burnt here, with his instrument, in a fire which consumed the house he lived in. Mr E. Delaval, a most ingenious member of our Royal Society, made one in imitation of it, with a better choice and form of glasses, which was the first I saw or heard. Being charmed with the sweetness of its tones and the music he produced from it, I wished to see the glasses disposed in a more convenient form, and brought together in a narrower compass, so as to admit of a l greater number of tones, and all within reach of hand to a person sitting before the instrument; which I accomplished, after various intermediate trials, and less commodious forms, both of glasses and construction, in the following manner.

“The glasses are blown as near as possible in the form of hemispheres, having each an open neck or socket in the middle. The thickness of the glass near the brim is about the tenth of an inch, or hardly quite so much, but thicker as it comes nearer the neck, which in the largest glasses is about an inch deep, and an inch and a half wide within; these dimensions lessening as the glasses themselves diminish in size, except that the neck of the smallest ought not to be shorter than half an inch. The largest glass is nine inches diameter, and the smallest three inches. Between these there are twenty-three different sizes, differing from each other a quarter of an inch in diameter. To make a single instrument, there should be at least six glasses blown of each size; and out of this number one may probably pick thirty-seven glasses (which are sufficient for [7:11:150]three octaves with all the semitones), that will be each either the note one wants, or a little sharper than that note, ’ and all fitting so well into each other, as to taper pretty regularly from the largest to the smallest. It is true there are not thirty-seven sizes; but it often happens that two of the same size differ a note or half a note in tone, by reason of a difference in thickness; and these may be placed one in the other, without sensibly hurting the regularity of the taper form.

“The glasses being chosen, and every one marked with a diamond the note you intend it for, they arc to be tuned by diminishing the thickness of those that are too sharp. This is done by grinding them round from the neck towards the brim, the breadth of one or two inches, as may be required, often trying the glass by a well-tuned harpsichord, comparing the note drawn from the glass by your finger with the note you want, as sounded by that string of the harpsichord. When you come near the matter, be careful to wipe the glass clean and dry before each trial; because the tone is something flatter when the glass is wet than it will be when dry; and grinding a very little between each trial, you will thereby tune to great exactness. The more care is necessary in this, because, if you go below your required tone, there is no sharpening it again, but by grinding somewhat off the brim, which will afterwards require polishing, and thus increase the trouble.

“The glasses being thus tuned, you are to be provided with a case for them, and a spindle on which they are to be fixed. My case is about three feet long, eleven inches every way wide within at the biggest end, and five inches at the smallest end; for it tapers all the way, to adapt it better to the conical figure of the set of glasses. This case opens in the middle of its height, and the upper part turns up by hinges fixed behind. The spindle is of hard iron, lies horizontally from end to end of the box within, exactly in the middle, and is made to turn on brass gudgeons at each end. It is round, an inch diameter at the thickest end, and tapering to a quarter of an inch at the smallest. A square shank comes from its upper end through the box, on which shank a wheel is fixed by a screw. This wheel serves as a fly to make the motion equable, when the spindle, with the glasses, is turned by the foot like a spinning-wheel. My wheel is of mahogany, eighteen-inches diameter, and pretty thick, so as to conceal near its circumference about twenty-five pounds of lead. An ivory pin is fixed in the face of this wheel, about four inches from the axis. Over the neck of this pin is put the loop of the string that comes up from the moveable step to give it motion. The case stands on a neat frame with four legs.

“To fix the glasses on the spindle, a cork is first to be fitted in each neck pretty tight, and projecting a little without the neck, that the neck of one may not touch the inside of another when put together, for that would make a jarring. These corks are to be perforated with holes of different diameters, so as to suit that part of the spindle on which they are to be fixed. When a glass is put on, by holding it stiffly between both hands, while another turns the spindle, it may be gradually brought to its place. But care must be taken that the hole be not too small, lest, in forcing it up, the neck should split; nor too large, lest the glass, not being firmly fixed, should turn or move on the spindle, so as to touch or jar against its neighbouring glass. The glasses thus are placed one in another; the largest on the biggest end of the spindle, which is to the left hand. The neck of this glass is towards the wheel; and the next goes into it in the same position, only about an inch of its brim appearing beyond the brim of the first; thus proceeding, every glass when fixed shows about an inch of its brim (or three quarters of an inch, or half an inch, as they grow smaller) beyond the brim of the glass that contains it; and it is from these exposed parts of each glass that the tone is drawn, by laying a finger on one of them as the spindle and glasses turn round.

“My largest glass is G, a little below the reach of a common voice, and my highest G, including three complete octaves. To distinguish the glasses more readily to the eye, I have painted the apparent parts of the glasses within side, every semitone white, and the other notes of the octave with the seven prismatic colours; viz. C red, D orange, E yellow, F green, G blue, A indigo, B purple, and G red again; so that the glasses of the same colour (the white excepted) are always octaves to each other.

“This instrument is played upon by sitting before the middle of the set of glasses, as before the keys of a harpsichord, turning them with the foot, and wetting them now and then with a spunge and clean water. The fingers should be first a little soaked in water, and quite free from all greasiness: a little fine chalk upon them is sometimes useful, to make them catch the glass and bring out the tone more readily. Both hands are used, by which means different parts are played together. Observe, that the tones are best drawn out when the glasses turn from the ends of the fingers, not when they turn t'o them.

“The advantages of this instrument are, that its tones are incomparably sweet beyond those of any other; that they may be swelled and softened at pleasure by stronger or weaker pressures of the finger, and continued to any length; and that the instrument, being once well tuned, never again wants tuning.”