A peculiar CACHEXY (a variety of the disease known to psycho-nosologists as the _cacoëthes scribendi_,) seems to be hereditary in the D’Israeli family. BENJAMIN D’ISRAELI, (the son of Isaac,) late Chancellor of the Exchequer, &c., when he rose in his place, as the Head or Representative of Her Majesty’s government in the House of Commons, to pronounce a eulogy on the recently deceased Duke of Wellington, had the impudence to repeat, word for word, a very bald translation of the _éloge_ delivered by Lamartine a few years previous, on occasion of the death of one of the third-rate marshals of Napoleon I.
The D’Israeli family are evidently “some” of the children of Israel, who, (as we are told on good authority,) when they left Egypt _borrowed_ everything they could get, and never, so far as the record shows, either returned the articles so obtained, or made proper acknowledgments therefor.
The Chinese did manufacture paper from the bark of the small branches of a tree of the mulberry genus, (_Morus Multicaulis_?) and also from old rags, silk, hemp, and cotton, as early as the second century of the Christian era; and it is supposed that from them the Arabs derived their knowledge of paper-making, an art which they introduced into Europe in the former half of the twelfth century, when the first paper-mill was put in operation in Spain, then under the Moorish dominion; and, in 1150, this article, as manufactured by them, had become famous throughout Christendom.
[We use the words Arab and Moor indiscriminately here. The former is the name of the race; the latter is limited to that portion found in Northern Africa. The Moor is the Arab of the WEST, (Al Mogreb, El Gharb,) in the Arabic, denominated MOGREBYN,—a word which in Roman and European mouths has smoothed and softened itself into a form suggestive of the origin of _Maurus_ and _Mauritania_.]
Now, without coming to a positive conclusion on this subject, we feel authorized to pronounce what appears to be a reasonable opinion, derived from all the facts which we have just placed before the reader,—that the introduction of writing-paper among Europeans, was the occasion and cause of the invention and general employment of modern writing-ink by them.