The bottom and sides of the frame seem to be fineered, and inlaid, probably with ivory, tortoise-shell, and mother-of-pearl, the ordinary produce of the neighbouring seas and deserts. It would be even now impossible, either to construct or to finish a harp of any form with more taste and elegance. Besides the proportions of its outward form, we must observe likewise how near it approached to a perfect instrument, for it wanted only two strings of having two complete octaves; that these were purposely omitted, not from defect of taste or science, must appear beyond contradiction, when we consider the harp that follows.
I had no sooner finished the harp which I had taken in hand, than I went to my assistant, to see what progress he had made in the drawing in which he was engaged. I found, to my very great surprise, that this harp differed essentially, in form and distribution of its parts, from the one I had drawn, without having lost any of its elegance; on the contrary, that it was finished with full more attention than the other. It seemed to be fineered with the same materials, ivory and tortoise-shell, but the strings were differently disposed, the ends of the three longest, where they joined to the sounding-board below, were defaced by a hole dug in the wall. Several of the strings in different parts had been scraped as with a knife, for the rest, it was very perfect. It had eighteen strings. A man, who seemed to be still older than the former, but in habit perfectly the same, bare-footed, close shaved, and of the same complexion with him, stood playing with both his hands near the middle of the harp, in a manner seemingly less agitated than in the other.
[Illustration: _Painting in Fresco, in the Sepulchres of Thebes._
_Publish’d Dec^r. 1^{ st}. 1789. by G. Robinson & Co._]
I went back to my first harp, verified, and examined my drawing in all its parts; it is with great pleasure I now give a figure of this second harp to the reader, it was mislaid among a multitude of other papers, at the time when I was solicited to communicate the former drawing to a gentleman then writing the History of Music, which he has already submitted to the public; it is very lately and unexpectedly this last harp has been found; I am only sorry this accident has deprived the public of Dr Burney’s remarks upon it. I hope he will yet favour us with them, and therefore abstain from anticipating his reflections, as I consider this as his province; I never knew any one so capable of affording the public, new, and at the same time just lights on this subject.