The task which I originally proposed to myself is now finished. I have done what I could to illustrate the leading principles of Political Economy. But I cannot leave off without attempting something more which I believe will improve the purpose of what I have already done. Now that TAXATION is everywhere considered a subject of deep importance,— attention having been called to it in a remarkable degree since my series was planned,—I feel that my work is not complete without a further illustration of the practice as well as the principle of Taxation. In the present doubtful state of our financial policy, the few Numbers which I am about to issue may be expected to be of greater temporary, and of less permanent, interest than those which have preceded them. However this may be, I believe myself called upon to offer them, before laying aside my pen for a long interval. That I should be permitted to complete, without interruption, my original plan of monthly publication, for two years, was more than, in the uncertainty of human affairs and the inconsistency of human projects, I ventured to anticipate with any degree of assurance. This is not the place in which to express more than a mere acknowledgment of the fact. But I must be allowed to add that so long a continuance of health and leisure is less surprising to me than the steadiness of the favour by which my exertions have been supported. Unless I could explain how far my achievements have fallen short of my aims, I could not express my sense of the patience with which the wise have borne with my failures, and the ardour with which (for the sake of the science) they have stimulated my successes: while those who have done me the honour of learning anything from me, have given me a yet higher pleasure by their studious appreciation of my object. I know not that my friends of either class can be better thanked than by the assurance, that while in their service I have not experienced a single moment of discouragement or weariness about my task. I have been often conscious of weakness, amounting to failure; but I have never been disheartened. Long after my slight elementary work shall have been (I trust) superseded, I shall, if I live, recur with quiet delight to the time when it formed my chief occupation, and shall hope that the wide friendships which it has originated will subsist when my little volumes are forgotten.