Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/667

SPINET. Thomas Hitchcock's spinets are better known than John's. The one in the woodcut belongs to Messrs. Broadwood, and is numbered 1379. (The highest number we have met with of Thomas Hitchcock, is 1547.) Messrs. Broadwood's differs from the John Hitchcock one of 1630 in having a curved instead of an angular bent side, and from the naturals being of ivory instead of ebony. The compass of these instruments—five octaves, from G to G—is so startling as to be incredible, were it not for the facts that several instruments are extant with this compass, that the keyboard did not admit of alteration, and that the Sainsbury Correspondence [see, p. 196b] mentions the greater compass that obtained in England in the time of Charles I. than was expected or required on the Continent. The absence also of the soundhole, regarded as essential in all stringed instruments of that time, where the soundboard covered the whole internal space, shows how eminently progressive the Hitchcocks must have been. Not so Haward, in the only instrument (that here represented) which we have been so fortunate as to meet with by this maker. Chas. Haward appears to have been contemporary with the Hitchcocks, and yet he is as conservative to old Italian or French practice as if John Hitchcock had never made an instrument in England. A John Hitchcock spinet, dated 1676, has lately come under our notice. [App. p.796 "for dated read numbered. The Haward spinet belonging to the Rev. L. K. Hilton, of Semley, Shaftesbury, is nearly like a Hitchcock, which proves that Howard did not remain with the model figured 655. Mr. Kendrick Pyne acquired a Haward spinet (now in Mr. Boddington's collection) dated or numbered 1687, that has sharps like the Hitchcocks, with a strip of the colour of the naturals let in, in this instance black."] John and Thomas were probably brothers. The Charles Haward spinet is small, with short keys and limited compass, being only of 4 octaves and a semitone, B—C. The naturals are of snakewood, nearly black; the sharps of ivory, There are wires on each bridge over which the strings pass, and along the hitchpin block, precisely the same as in a dulcimer. The decoration of the soundboard, surrounding an Italian rose, is signed 'I H,' with 'Carolus Haward Fecit' above the keys; and the name of each key is distinctly written, which we shall again have occasion to refer to. Pepys patronised Haward (or Hayward as he sometimes writes the name). We read in his Diary—

Another reference concerns the purchase of Triangles for the spinet—a three-legged stand, as in our illustration. A curious reference to Charles Haward occurs in 'A Vindication of an Essay to the advancement of Musick,' by Thomas Salmon, M.A., London, 1672. This writer is advocating a new mode of notation, in which the ordinary clefs were replaced by B. (bass), M. (mean), and T. (treble) at the signatures:

The lettering over the keys in Mr. W. Dale's Haward spinet is here shown to be original. It is