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 6-5/8 inches, and at the bottom, 13-1/2 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-- [Music] 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-- [Music: Tuned in C. Tuned in G.] [Music: The open notes correspond with the long black keys of the instrument; the black notes with the short white keys.] The sound is produced by the vibration of the strings, maintained by the friction of a wheel with which they are brought into contact, the function of the rotary movement being analogous to that of the fiddler's bow, the wheel being also prepared, like the bow, with rosin. Sympathetic strings are not unfrequently attached.