L'estro armonico National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. The 1797 Encyclopædia Britannica records that the fifth concerto was also played on an Irish variant of Benjamin Franklin's celebrated invention, the glass harmonica. Under the entry for "Harmonica" or "Armonica", a 35-glass harmonica is described, about which its inventor, the Dublin physician Edward Cullen, writes: There were numerous arrangements for keyboard instruments in the eighteenth century, as described in the next section. One surviving eighteenth century transcription of Op.3, No.3 has been interpreted as an arrangement for glockenspiel. Themes from movements in the concertos were borrowed by other composers for vocal works: the
18th century in literature be pronounced by Dr Johnson to be one of the most pleasing tragedies in the language. Also in 1703 Sir Richard Steele's comedy "The Tender Husband" achieved some success. In 1704, Jonathan Swift (Irish satirist) published "A Tale of a Tub" and "The Battle of the Books" and John Dennis published his "Grounds of Criticism in Poetry". "The Battle of the Books" begins with a reference to the use of a glass (which, in those days, would mean either a mirror or a magnifying glass) as a comparison to the use of satire. Swift is, in this, very much the