Excerpt from English Pleasure Carriages: Their Origin, History, Varieties, Materials, Constructions, Defects, Improvements, and Capabilities The writer makes no pretension to set a complete work before the reader; circumstances rather than origi nal intention have caused the book to be produced, just as Mr. Babbage in the pursuit of a specific object ac quired a mass of general knowledge, which he afterwards gave to the world, for the benefit of those who might not have the opportunity of collecting it as he had done. The writer, when a boy, was brought up, in the usual phrase, to the art and mystery of coachmaking, and acquired the common amount of routine skill in imitating certain prescribed forms; but as to the principles of the art, - as to the mode of originating the forms, he was left in utter ignorance. In fact, those to whose instruction he was confided were as ignorant as himself. Had the pat terns of the factory been destroyed by accident, the busi ness must have stopped, unless external talent had been brought in to renew them. Impatience of mere routine excited in the writer the desire of becoming familiar with other branches of the art, and he acquired something of skill in many varieties of work. Circumstances afterwards. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.