Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/509

 drifted into piano-manufacturing in Boston, where he soon won a distinguished place.

The upright, although the popular form in Europe for over fifty years, never won a place here until past 1870, when the showing of these instruments at the Centennial Exhibition stimulated fresh efforts in this direction. About 1882 it had conquered the square as a household form of piano, and since then the latter has been fast going out of use. In fact, in the leading shops the manufacture of squares has ceased entirely.

Southwell's cabinet uprights, already spoken of, were large clumsy instruments, though the first acceptable pianos in perpendicular shape produced. In 1813 Robert Wornum, a great figure in British piano-making records, brought forward an improved upright with diagonal strings, which, from its portableness and other characteristics, soon became the favorite. In his model the dimensions of the upright were reduced to about four feet six inches, and this subsequently in its improved features became the English cottage piano—a form still in popular favor in England. Wornum also produced a smaller upright in 1826, which he named the "piccolo." These, in addition to valuable action improvements, corresponding in effectiveness with the originality of his instruments, were most significant contributions to the development of the upright up to the latter date. He was also the inventor of the upright "tape-check action," which is now generally used, though with many modern improvements. It was patented in England in 1843, but, strange to say, despite its admitted qualities of excellence, was regarded with little favor in Wornum's own country. Continental piano manufacturers alone taking kindly to it. The upright, meanwhile, received much attention in Europe from piano-makers and improvers, and soon grew into popular favor, to the general exclusion of the square. The European squares, however, were never brought to any considerable degree of perfection, while American squares, on the contrary, were so excellent, toward 1860, that their musical and other qualities served to draw the attention of piano-makers from the upright. The demand for pianos taking little floor-space for household use in the large cities within more recent years drew the attention of makers to the upright as a substitute for the square; and, now that success has been achieved in giving the upright the musical characteristics of the square, the latter is almost out of date.

Cabinets and other forms of uprights on English lines were