Complete, it was a landau, holding four inside,
besides the servants' hind dickey; disunited, it
formed at will a Stanhope gig, a cabriolet, or a
curricle. In spite of the example of the Iron Duke,
and the eloquent explanations of the inventor, the
public, either not caring for such a combination,
or not willing to pay the price, never took to the
Equirotal.

The Brougham, on the other hand, advanced
from the first, and eventually spread over the
whole civilised world. To obtain lightness, the
perch and the C springs were abolished, at the
cost of a certain buzzing noise still to be found
in the work of inferior builders. There are
Broughams with C springs, but these are
luxuries and a departure from the original
principle. Broughams were built at first for two
only, then were extended to four seats; single
and double Broughams were soon adopted by
the fairest of the fair, because it was
discovered that the plate-glass windows presented
charming portraits, hung, as they should be,
exactly on the line, while ascent and descent
presented none of the difficulties of the old-fashioned
chariot. It was found that the finest cabriolet-
horse looked twice as well in a Brougham, and,
with the weight off his back and legs, lasted twice
as long; besides, if it were necessary to make a
long journey instead of a succession of flashes
through street or park, then, by exchanging the
sixteen-hands stepper for a pair of light blood
horses, the Brougham still became the most agreeable
conveyance, as long as the beauties of nature
were not the object of the journey. In the early
days of Broughams, attempts were made to
reproduce the chariot, with hammercloth and
knife-board for the calves, but these were
mistakes. The greatest mistake of all is burying a
Brougham behind two gigantic horses. A single
horse, if well shaped for harness, should not be
under fifteen hands three inches high -- sixteen
hands one inch, is better. Remarkable colours,
even duns, skewbalds, and white stockings, if
with good knee action, are permissible; but
when a pair are harnessed, about fifteen hands
one inch is the most harmonious height; and
blood galloways, even smaller, look very well if
the Brougham be built for them. A single-horse
Brougham is essentially a town carriage; taken
into the country, it is apt to degenerate into a
cruelty carriage.

The International Exhibition of 1851 left an
indelible scratch -- to use .the phrase of one of our
greatest engineers -- on the history of carriage-
building, especially in the large class of cheaper
vehicles, which good roads, suburban villas,
railroad stations, and the repeal of the penal
taxes on the owners of more than one carriage,
had created. The great builders, the aristocracy
of the trade, were there. The four-in-hond drag,
fitted with ice-pails and a dozen luxurious
contrivances, of which the previous generation never
dreamed, was there. There, was the capacious
coach, of dignity and state, in which the high
sheriff of a county meets the judges on circuit,
or the many-daughtered duchess attends the
Drawing-room or the royal ball. There, was the
stately and elegant barouche; and there, was a
mob of phaetons, dog-carts, two and four-
wheeled, Whitechapels, Coburgs, and pony
carriages of every conceivable variety of shape
and name. It was in 1851 that the
celebrated clothes-basket took up its position
as a low-priced, not very clean rural resource.
Southampton and Derby became famous; and
out of a cottage dog-cart arose, in Nottingham,
that steam-driven carriage manufactory
which now vies with the best names in London
for solidity and taste.

The rise of the four-wheeled pony phaeton --
which has since branched off into many varieties
of shape and price -- dates from the fallen days of
George the Fourth, when he entered into voluntary
exile at the cottage near Virginia Water.
The king's pony phaeton was one of the rare
instances of good taste patronised by the author
of white kid breeches, stucco palaces, and
uniforms in which fighting was impossible and
dancing difficult.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer who
reduced the tax on low-wheeled carriages was
the real author of the swarms of pony phaetons
that branched off and vulgarised, as the French
say, the George the Fourth model. The
nineteen-guinea dog-cart that never carried
dogs, and the thirty-inch wheel pony phaeton,
were bred in the same year by the same budget.
As a special boon to the agricultural public, in
a chronic state of discontent, the exemption
from taxation, which had previously been
confined to the springless shandrydan, was extended
to any two-wheeled carriage built for less than
twenty pounds, provided the owner's name
appeared in letters of a certain length and
undefined breadth, on the cart or gig. This bounty
created a large crop of dog-carts at fabulously
low prices, embellished with letters which
presented the nearest approach to length without
breadth. The exemption has long been repealed,
but it lasted long enough to make the "cart" an
institution, without which no gentleman's
establishment was complete. It raised a number of
ingenious adventurous wheelwrights into builders of
carts, who by degrees, when all one-horse springed
vehicles were put on the same footing, advanced
to better things, broke through the costly traditions of
Long-acre, and displayed great ingenuity
in varying the form and shape of vehicles, on
two and four wheels, for town and country use.
These found a place and new customers in the
Crystal Palace Exhibition and at agricultural
shows.

Among the novelties, is the waggonette,
beloved of nursery-maids and children; it is excellent
for the ladies with sandwich-baskets and
flasks at cover-side, where roads run handy;
useful for a country race-course; not bad at a
pic-nic; indispensable where much luggage goes
to a station. The waggonette, which one, or
two, or four, horses may be harnessed to, which