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I will conclude this historical sketch by remarking, and as a remarkable historical fact, that the English firms which in the last century introduced the pianoforte, to whose honorable exertions we owe a debt of gratitude, with the exception of Stodart, still exist, and are in the front rank of the world's competition.

Stodart appears to have preceded Broadwood in taking up the manufacture of the grand piano by four or five years. In 1777 he patented an alternate pianoforte and harpsichord, the drawing of which patent shows the Backers action. The pedals he employed were to shift the harpsichord register and to bring on the octave stop.

In 1821, he also touched upon a subject which subsequently received his closer attention the vaporization of mercury at common temperatures; and immediately afterwards conducted, in company with Mr. Stodart, experiments on the alloys of steel. He was accustomed in after years to present to his friends razors formed from one of the alloys then discovered.

The little lady was learned, reading Virgil at nine, ambitious enough to venture a tragedy at fourteen, and cynical; writing to her life-long friend, Miss Eliza Stodart, of Haddington as a "bottomless pit of dulness," where "all my little world lay glittering in tinsel at my feet." She was ruthless to the suitors as numerous, says Mr.

I sent you before the New Year a bill of exchange for Wessel; tell Pleyel that I have settled with Wessel. Up to 1838 he had Stodart, and from 1839 to 1845 Stapleton, as partner. He retired in 1860, Messrs. Edwin Ashdown and Henry Parry being his successors. Since the retirement of Mr. Parry, in 1882, Mr. Ashdown is the sole proprietor. Mr.

The dynamo is the most prominent instance of actual mechanical utility in the field of electrical induction. He was associated with Davy, and quarreled with him about the liquefaction of chlorine and other gases, and was the companion of Wallaston, Herschel, Brand, and others. In connection with Stodart, he experimented with steel, with results still considered valuable.

One day Stodart, the sculptor, met Fuseli starting forth with an old umbrella. ‘Why do you carry the umbrella?’ asked the sculptor. ‘I am going to see Constable,’ was the reply, ‘and he is always painting rain.’ One can only remark that, if Constable was always painting rain, he always did it well.

I should regard it as treasure trove if one were forthcoming in the same way that brought to light the authentic one of Stein's. As, however, Backers' intimate friends, and his assistants in carrying out the invention, were John Broadwood and Robert Stodart, we have, in their early instruments, the principle and all the leading features of the Backers grand.