The seventh edition was commenced in monthly parts in March, 1830, and finished in January, 1842. Of its success it is almost unnecessary to speak; with confidence reposed in the proprietors sufficient to command the services of such writers as Young, Malthus, Macculloch, Mill, Roget, Wilson, Empson, De Quincey, and Tytler, while the editor can count on the aid of friends like Scott, Playfair, Stewart, Leslie, Lord Jeffrey, Sir William Hamilton, and Sir John Barrow, it is not difficult to anticipate the result. The mere cost of presentation copies amounted to £416 16_s._, and the amount of duty on the paper employed exceeded £6000; while, to go into heavier matters, the total expense of the twenty-one quarto volumes was, in a trial in the Jury Court of Scotland, proved to have been no less a sum than £125,667 9_s._ 3_d._ This amount, of course, includes every item of expenditure, among which the following are the most important:-- £ _s._ _d._ Contributions and Editing 22,590 2 11 Printing 18,610 1 4 Stereotyping 3,317 5 8 Paper 27,854 15 7 Bookbinding 12,739 12 2 Engraving and Plate-printing 11,777 18 1 The literary contributions to the first volume of “Dissertations” alone cost upwards of £3450. The work was eminently successful, and this immense expenditure shows us something of what “success” means in this instance. The commercial management of an undertaking like this was sufficient to occupy the attention of a man of extraordinary diligence; but Mr. Black found time, not only to contribute several articles to his _Encyclopædia_, but to take a very warm and prominent interest in the government of his native city; and from 1843 to 1848 he occupied the highest position to which a citizen of Edinburgh can aspire--that of Lord Provost.