forth by the Erards, we think part of their
tale worth telling to our readers, most of whom
must have heard of Erard's pianos. The
genealogy of these instruments is the psaltery
or dulciimer, the clavichord (the tinkling
grandfather of the pianoforte), the
harpsichord, and then the pianoforte— the
softloud.

Sébastien Erard was born at Strasbourg in
seventeen hundred and fifty-two, and was the
eldest of the four children of an upholsterer.
His father sent him, when he was eight years
old, to schools in which he was taught the
elements of architecture, perspective
drawing, and practical geometry. His father
having married very late in life, was
surprised by death before his children reached
an age at which they could be useful to their
mother or support themselves. Sébastien
Erard became the head of a family at the
age of sixteen. As his native town did not
afford him the scope of which he felt the need,
he set off courageously for Paris. There he
obtained employment in the shop of a maker
of clavichords, who was a man mean enough
to dismiss Sébastien because he wished to
understand all that he saw. His second
employer having received an order to make a
clavichord of an extraordinary kind, found it
required a number of mechanical contrivances
of which he felt himself to be incapable.
Thanks to Sébastien, however, the clavichord
was finished and pronounced a masterpiece.
When the nominal maker was questioned
by competent persons, he could neither show
nor explain the mechanism, and was forced
to refer them to his assistant. Henceforth
Sébastien Erard found himself connected
with distinguished persons, who made a
point of extolling him. Presented to the
Duchesse de Villeroy, who occupied herself
much with art and music, she offered him a
lodging in her hotel, which he accepted. At
this period pianos were little more than
curiosities. A few amateurs only had
obtained them from Germany and England.
Sebastien constructed one for the Duchesse
de Villeroy- the first he ever made. The
numerous orders he received caused him to
send for his brother, Jean Baptiste, to come
and help him. Quitting the Hôtel de Villeroy,
he founded his house in the Rue de Bourbon,
in the Faubourg St. Germain. By this first
step (says M. Adams, of the Institute,
patriotically) he emancipated his country from
tribute to foreigners; English and German
pianos gave place everywhere to French
pianos, and the instrument which had been
only exceptionally used came into general
request.

The luthiers, or makers of musical instruments,
who bought and sold foreign pianos,
found the new factory injurious to their
commerce. They made a seizure in it, under
the pretext that the brothers Erard were not
members of the Corporation of Fanmakers
to which the luthiers belonged. Sébastien
Erard had powerful friends, however, and he
obtained a brevet from Louis the Sixteenth
which delivered him completely from the
persecuting corporation. This document has
the rare merit of being a pleasant specimen
of the paternal government of the Bourbons;
we translate it entire:

This day, the fifth of February, one thousand
seven hundred and eighty-five, the king being at
Versailles informed that Mr. Sébastien Erard has
succeeded by a new method of his invention to improve
the instrument called a forté-piano; that he has even
obtained the preference over those made in England,
of which he makes a commerce in the city of Paris,
and his majesty wishing to fix the talents of Mr. Erard
in the said city, and to give him testimonies of the
protection with which he honours those who, like him,
have by assiduous labour contributed to the useful and
agreeable arts, has permitted him to make, to cause
to be made, and to sell in the city and faubourgs of
Paris, and wherever it may seem to him good,
forté-pianos; and to employ there, whether by himself or
by his workmen, the wood, the iron, and all the other
materials necessary to the perfection or the ornament
of the said instrument without his being liable on this
account to be troubled or disturbed by the guards,
syndics, and adjutants of the corporations and
committees of arts and trades for any cause or under any
pretext whatever; under the conditions, nevertheless,
by the said Mr. Erard of conforming himself to the
regulations and ordinances concerning the discipline of
journeymen and workmen, and of not admitting into his
workshops any but those who shall have satisfied the
aforesaid regulations. And for assurance of his will,
his majesty has commanded me to expedite to the
aforesaid Mr. Erard the present brevet, which he has
chosen to sign with his own hand, and to be countersigned
by me, Secretary of State, and of his commands
and Finances.

(Signed) Louis.
LE BARON DE BRETEUIL.

The chief improvements in musical
instruments due to the Erards are, the double
action of the harp and the double escapement
of the piano. Sébastien Erard imagined the
improvements, and his brother, Jean Baptiste,
and his nephew, Pierre, brought them to
practical perfection.

The double action made the harp a
complete instrument, on which inharmonically
modulated music could be played. Sébastien
Erard had been induced to turn his attention
to the improvement of the harp by
Krumpholtz, a celebrated harpist of Paris. After
he had been working for a year,
Beaumarchais, author of the Barber of Seville,
who was at once an author, a politician, a
musician, and a mechanician, on examining
his plans told him frankly that, as they were
impracticable, he would do well to abandon
them. Erard did not heed his advice, and
was on the point of obtaining success when
Krumpholtz connected his interests with a
maker of harps upon the old models. Erard
felt that success was impossible in Paris if
he encountered the opposition of the harpists
with Krumpholtz at their head, and left for