musical instrument in which the sounds are produced by stretched wires. The spinet and virginals, &c., preceded the harpsichord, which was an improvement on them; and all of these were derived from the harp. Each was really a horizontal harp inclosed in a somnaceous case; the wires being struck by jacks moved by finger-keys. In the beginning of the eighteenth century the pianoforte was invented as an improvement upon the harpsichord. Instead of the jacks armed with crowquills which struck the harpsichord wires, hammers covered with prepared leather were used in the pianoforte. Mason, the English poet and amateur musician, introduced great improvements in the mechanism of the keys and hammers. Clementi, Broadwood, and other makers in London, have, since then, so greatly improved the pianoforte as to justify its being considered, in its latest form, almost an English instrument. See Pianoforte.

Harpylie, or Harpies, in Grecian Mythology, fabulous monsters sometimes employed by the gods as the ministers of their vengeance. About their numbers and their parentage very various accounts are given. They are usually represented as two, or at most three in number; and as being the daughters of Neptune and Terra, or of Typhon. They are described as living in the islands called the Strophades, at the entrance of Orcus. They were originally represented as maidens, with wings and long flowing hair, and great swiftness of flight. They gradually became changed, however, into hideous monsters, of fierce and loathsome aspect, and living in an atmosphere that exhaled an intolerable stench. The most celebrated myth with which they are identified is that of the blind Phineus, who no sooner sat down to a meal than these foul creatures came swooping down and carried it off in their claws. In the midst of his distress the Argonauts came to his house, and he promised to aid them in their quest if they would rid him of his tormentors. The Boreades Calais and Zetes attacked them, and would have slain them had they not promised to molest Phineus no more.