The piano, though its recent development has been so rapid, is the growth of ages, and we can, for three thousand years or more, dimly and imperfectly trace its growth. The instrument, indeed, has found an historian,--Dr. Rimbault of London,--who has gathered the scattered notices of its progress into a handsome quarto, now accessible in some of our public libraries. It is far from our desire to make a display of cheap erudition; yet perhaps ladies who love their piano may care to spend a minute or two in learning how it came to be the splendid triumph of human ingenuity, the precious addition to the happiness of existence, which they now find it to be. "I have had my share of trouble," we heard a lady say the other day, "but my piano has kept me happy." All ladies who have had the virtue to subdue this noble instrument to their will, can say something similar of the solace and joy they daily derive from it. The Greek legend that the twang of Diana's bow suggested to Apollo the invention of the lyre, was not a mere fancy; for the first stringed instrument of which we have any trace in ancient sculpture differed from an ordinary bow only in having more than one string. A two-stringed bow was, perhaps, the first step towards the grand piano of to-day. Additional strings involved the strengthening of the bow that held them; and, accordingly, we find the Egyptian harps, discovered in the catacombs by Wilkinson, very thick and massive in the lower part of the frame, which terminated sometimes in a large and solid female head. From the two-stringed bow to these huge twelve-stringed Egyptian harps, six feet high and beautifully finished with veneer, inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, no one can say how many centuries elapsed. The catgut strings of the harps of three thousand years ago are still capable of giving a musical sound. The best workmen of the present time, we are assured, could not finish a harp more exquisitely than these are finished; yet they have no mechanism for tightening or loosening the strings, and no strings except such as were furnished by the harmless, necessary cat. The Egyptian harp, with all its splendor of decoration, was a rude and barbaric instrument. It has not been shown that Greece or Rome added one essential improvement to the stringed instruments which they derived from older nations. The Chickerings, Steinways, Erards, and Broadwoods of our day cannot lay a finger upon any part of a piano, and say that they owe it to the Greeks or to the Romans. The Cithara of the Middle Ages was a poor thing enough, in the form of a large P, with ten strings in the oval part; but it had _movable pegs_, and could be easily tuned. It was, therefore, a step toward the piano of the French Exposition of 1867.