Bell-HARP, a musical instrument of the string kind, thus called from the common players on it swinging it about, as a bell on its basis.
It is about three feet long; its strings, which are of no determinate number, are of brass or steel wire, fixed at one end, and stretched across the sound board by screws fixed at the other. It takes in four octaves, according to the number of the strings, which are struck only with the thumbs, the right hand playing the treble and the left hand the bass: and in order to draw the sound the clearer, the thumbs are armed with a little wire pin. This may perhaps be the lyra or cithara of the ancients; but we find no mention
made of it under the name it now bears, which must be allowed to be modern.
HARP of Eolus. See ACOUSTICS, p. 149.