Post paper seems to have derived its name from the post-horn, which at one time was its distinguishing mark. It does not appear to have been used prior to the establishment of the general post-office (1670), when it became the custom to blow a horn, to which circumstance no doubt we may attribute its introduction. The mark is still frequently used, but the same change which has so much diminished the number of painted signs in the streets of our towns and cities, has nearly made paper-marks a matter of antiquarian curiosity; the maker’s name being now generally used, and the mark, in the few instances where it still remains, serving the purpose of mere ornament, rather than that of distinction. Water-marks, however, have at various periods been the means of detecting frauds, forgeries and impositions, in our courts of law and elsewhere, to say nothing of the protection they afford in the instances already referred to, such as bank notes, cheques, receipt, bill, and postage stamps. The celebrated Curran once distinguished himself in a case which he had undertaken, by shrewdly referring to the water-mark, which effectually determined the verdict. And another instance, which I introduce merely in the form of an amusing anecdote, occurred once at Messina, where the monks of a certain monastery exhibited, with great triumph, a letter as being written by the Virgin Mary with her own hand. Unluckily for them, however, this was not, as it easily might have been, written upon the ancient papyrus, but on paper made of rags. On one occasion a visitor, to whom this was shown, observed, with affected solemnity, that the letter involved also a _miracle_, for the paper on which it was written was not in existence until several centuries after the mother of our Lord had died. A further illustration of the kind occurs in a work entitled “Ireland’s Confessions,” which was published respecting his fabrication of the Shakspeare manuscripts,—a literary forgery even still more remarkable, I think, than that which is said to have been perpetrated by Chatterton, as Rowley’s Poems. The interest which at the time was universally felt in this production of Ireland’s, may be partially gathered from the fact, that the whole of the original edition, which appeared in the form of a shilling pamphlet, was disposed of in a few hours; while so great was the eagerness to obtain copies afterwards, that single impressions were sold in an auction room at the extravagant price of a guinea.