While living at Border Town, New Jersey, U.
S. A., Hawkins invented the cottage piano--portable grand, he called
it--and his father, Isaac Hawkins, to whom, in Grove's "Dictionary,"
I have attributed the invention, took out, in the year 1800[1], the
English patent for it. I can fortunately show you one of these original
pianinos, which belongs to Messrs. Broadwood. It is a wreck, but you
will discern that the strings descend nearly to the floor, while the
key-board, a folding one, is raised to a convenient height between the
floor and the upper extremities of the strings. Hawkins had an iron
frame and tension rods, within which the belly was entirely suspended;
a system of tuning by mechanical screws; an upper metal bridge; equal
length of string throughout; metal supports to the action, in which a
later help to the repetition was anticipated--the whole instrument being
independent of the case. Hawkins tried also a lately revived notion of
coiled strings in the bass, doing away with tension. Lastly, he sought
for a _sostinente_, which has been tried for from generation to
generation, always to fail, but which, even if it does succeed, will
produce another kind of instrument, not a pianoforte, which owes so much
of its charm to its unsatiating, evanescent tone.
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