many or all of the springs at one time. In the
first we have the simplest element of melody,
one note often repeated; in the other we have
the simplest element of harmony, two or more
notes sounded together; and it is for the
artist to work up these two elements so as to
produce a rich piece of music. The pins
appear to be strewed over the surface of the
barrel in utter confusion; but it is not so;
according as few or many notes are sounded
at once, according as the tune has many
crotchets or many semiquavers, so are the
pins sparsely or closely congregated. Every
touch of every pin causes some one of the
springs to vibrate, and in vibrating to emit
its sound. Lucy Neal being a more sober
personage than Jack Robinson, and telling her
story more slowly, requires fewer pins, placed
more widely apart, to work out her music.

There is a great deal of philosophy in the
turning or revolving of the barrel: much
ingenuity, much care, and a most potent
influence on the harmonic effect thence resulting.
We insert a tiny key into a tiny keyhole,
wind up our musical box, and thereby
coil up a spring. The spring in its
impatient eagerness to unwind itself again, drags
round a little ratchet-wheel, and this ratchet-wheel
drags round another little wheel affixed
to the end of the barrel, and this second
little wheel drags round the barrel itself.
Until the spring has fully recovered its former
position of independence, it continues to pull
away heartily; and as long as it pulls, so
long will the barrel turn round, and so long
will the pins on the barrel draw forth sweet
music. Generally speaking matters are so
arranged that a tune is played once through
during one revolution of the barrel;
insomuch that a continuance of the revolution
produces a repetition of the tune. Were it
not so, the pins for the end of the tune would
be mingled up with those for the beginning,
and all would be confusion. But most musical
boxes play two tunes—some more; and yet
they have but one barrel each. This result is
brought about in an exceedingly ingenious
way; and we pray that the goddess of
Lucidity (whoever she may be) will assist us
making clear that which is somewhat difficult
to describe. If the box played but one tune,
the pins would be arranged in equidistant
rings round the barrel, all the pins in anyone
ring acting upon one particular spring; and
there would be as many rings of pins as there
are springs, each opposite to each. But when
the box plays two tunes, there are intermediate
rings of pins, forming another series
alternating with the former. One set belong to
one tune, and one to the other; one set act
upon the springs, and at the same moment
the other set, being opposite to the vacancies
or spaces between the springs, do not touch
them, and therefore elicit no sound. After
having played (let us suppose) "Where the bee
sucks," and being desirous then of a visit from
Judy Callaghan, we must somehow or other put
the one series out of gear, and bring the other
series of pegs into action. This is effected by
shifting the barrel a very minute distance
longitudinally, so as to bring the hitherto idle
rings of pins exactly opposite the springs;
there is a small stud or button on the outside
of the box, by means of which this shifting
of the barrel is effected. Some musical boxes
rise to the dignity of three, four, five, or even
six times, by a much more complex arrangement
of pins.

We are not in a position to understand
Giacomo's smart little French-polished
crimson-silked organ-piano which he rests upon
a stick, and out of which he grinds his bread
and butter. Why the musical box grinds its
own music, and leaves the organ-piano to be
ground by another, is simply because the
former has a coiled spring, and the latter has
none. The handle or winch which Giacomo
turns so many hundred times in a day, is
connected by cog-wheels to the barrel; and the
barrel is thus made to revolve by manual
power instead of by the tension of a watch-spring.
The barrel of the organ-piano, like
that of the musical box, is studded with pins
all over the surface; these pins acting
mediately or immediately, on a series of strings,
to bring out their twanging music.

But the legitimate old-fashioned barrel-organ,
of greater weight, bulk, and solidity
of sound, is better worth a little analysis
than the organ-piano. It has a large and
interesting family of pipes; and every pipe
pipes to its own tune. When the leader of
the orchestra belonging to the Fantoccini, or
the Acrobatic Brothers, plays his mouth-organ,
he simply blows air into a number of
little tubes, each of which yields a particular
musical note, more or less acute in pitch as
the tube is shorter or longer. So with the
barrel-organ: the tubes want to be blown upon
or into, and they are so blown accordingly.
But who is the blower? Our blackeyed,
swarthy-faced friend is a grinder, and a
blower; for he carries a pair of bellows
cunningly boxed up in his organ, and the
same grinding which sets the barrel to work,
works the bellows also. The manufacturer,
bearing in mind that a church-organ has
reed-pipes as well as open pipes, to give
difference in timbre or quality of tone,
has both kinds also in his grinding organ.
It may not be that both kinds are in the
same organ; but the flute-like tones of some,
and the clarionet-like tones of others, will
illustrate the fact. The barrel is studded, not
merely with brass pins, but with brass staples;
these, as the barrel rotates, act upon levers
which open the pipes, and enable them to
speak. If a mere pin act upon a lever, the
pipe is open only for an instant, and we have
a short staccato note; but if the longer
staple act upon a lever, the pipe is kept open
until the staple has wholly passed, and a
continuous note is produced. All this mechanism
—the pipes, the reeds, the barrel, the pins,