Company, an enterprise that failed to realise the hopes centred in it. But in that failure, unknown to those gallant pioneers, lay the seed of success. Their plant was lying idle, and might have been dispersed but for a happy providence: the appearance in France of the velocipede. The velocipede was by no means the first attempt of the kind to aid locomotion on highways. Indeed, in Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ there may be found a reference, under date of 1769, to a “new-invented machine” that went without horses. A man sat in it and turned a handle, which worked a spring, which drove the machine forward. The criticism Johnson levelled against this device was one that will probably appeal powerfully to all cyclists who have stored up in their memories horrid experiences of hill-climbing and head-winds. “What is gained,” said the learned Doctor, “is the man has the choice whether he will move himself alone, or himself and the machine too.” Nothing came of that invention, and it was not until 1810 that the “Hobby Horse,” as it afterwards became known, was devised in Paris by a M. Niepce. He named it a “Celeripede.” This machine, improved by a Baron von Drais, of Mannheim, does not appear to have found its way to England until the autumn of 1818, when a coach-maker of Long Acre, one Dennis Johnson by name, introduced it as a “Pedestrian Curricle.” From 1819 to 1830 this machine—the popularly-named “Hobby Horse”—enjoyed a certain favour, although on country roads it could but seldom have been seen, for no one could ride it twenty miles and remain in an able-bodied condition. Its mere weight was appalling, constructed as it was of two heavy wooden wheels shod with iron, and held together by a stout bar of timber. For saddle, the rider had a cushion, and leant his chest against another cushion, supported by ironwork. Bestriding this fearsome contrivance, the adventurous rider’s feet easily reached the ground. As the Hobby Horse had no cranks or pedals, the method of propulsion was that of running in this straddling position until a sufficient impetus had been gained, when the lumbering machine would carry its owner a short distance on the flat. It was, of course, impossible to ride up even the slightest rise; but, considering the momentum likely to be accumulated by a mass of iron and wood, scaling considerably over a hundredweight, the pace down hill must have been furious enough.