To Mr Laurie we must give the high credit of improving upon Mr Hopkinson’s improvements, and persisting in seeing that his workpeople kept on improving, instead of, as workpeople used to do in 1838, hinder their employers by vexatious objections to all alterations. This period was noted also by the patronage by the Duke of Wellington of a vehicle called the equirotal, invented by Mr W. Bridges Adams. This was a gig without a head, and a curricle with a head, made so that each could be used with one or a pair of horses, or combined into a mail phaeton by adding two couplings between the two bodies; the four-wheels being of equal height, give it the name of equirotal. The invention has some very good points, and may be revived some day, with a more perfect connecting joint than Mr Adams attained in 1838. But the greatest improvement of this period was the introduction of the brougham. Lord Brougham and others had for some time used a one-horse chariot. The Pilentum chariot for one horse had already been built at Paris, and several other small close carriages called Clarences had been constructed; but none of these, although some were really light enough for one horse, took thoroughly the taste of the public. Mr David Davies introduced some shapes, and Messrs Laurie and Marner perfected them. I think it was in 1839 that the first vehicle which was nearly the shape of the present Brougham, was built by Mr Robinson, of Mount Street, for Lord Brougham. Messrs Thrupp built one in the following year, 1840, of the same shape. In a few years they were built by nearly all Coachmakers, and proved so convenient that they superseded even the cabriolet for gentlemen’s use. The size of the first Brougham was much as is now in vogue, about 4 feet long in the body, and the same breadth outside measure, the wheels 2 feet 11 inches and 3 feet 7 inches, the driving-boot was made without any arch, in a single sweep from the body to the foot-board; it was hung on elliptic springs in front, and five springs behind, without any body steps. This was preceded by the pill-box Brougham, as it was called, with straight front pillars, and the body very much contracted in front, to look light. A street cab was the forerunner of both. In a year or two, Mr Edward Lytton Bulwer (afterwards Lord Lytton) had a small Clarence of the shape called Imperial Clarence which was painted brown with white wheels, and had a small hammer-cloth of brown and white; the whole was tastily fitted up and finished, but the attempt to introduce a miniature chariot did not succeed, although it was built with considerable care by Messrs Laurie and Marner.