Puff is by no means a defunct character. He has merely changed his vocation, and at present is eating in his own words and professions as fast as ever mountebank swallowed tape on a stage at Bartholomew fair. Let those gentleman be perfectly easy. There is plenty of work yet in store for them. Though during the autumnal months it may be difficult to find proper subjects for leaders, without diverging from the fields of fact into the unlimited wastes of fiction, they may rest assured that ere long they will be summoned to a more serious encounter. The days of experiment are gone by, but the results still remain, to be tested according to their merit by the intelligence of the British people. * * * * * _Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh._ FOOTNOTES: [51] The exceptions to this rule are so few, that they need hardly be stated. Incomes from investments in foreign funds are perhaps the principal exception, but the amount of these is not large, and cannot affect the general principle above laid down, which lies, or ought to lie, at the foundation of every system of POLITICAL ECONOMY. [52] _Vide_ the Magazine for March 1848. No. CCCLXXXIX. Article, "THE BUDGET." [53] See on this subject a remarkable pamphlet, entitled "_Past and Present Delusions on Political Economy_," by ALEXANDER GIBBON, Esq. The author has the merit of having pointed out at least one direct infringement of an Act of Parliament, to which we have referred in the text; and we must also bear our testimony to the soundness and precision of many of the views which he has stated on the intricate subject of taxation. Transcriber's Notes: Pp. 516, 545, 573, and 592 added missing footnote anchors. P. 614 corrected total from £14,320,013 to £14,360,043 Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were corrected. Punctuation normalized. Anachronistic and non-standard spellings retained as printed. Italics markup is enclosed in _underscores_. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 68, No. 421, November 1850, by Various