Denmark, without any duties attached to it; and that
Herr von Voltaire had been appointed chamberlain at Berlin. About this
period many other desirable purchases made their way through the
country in the bales of books.

There were many opportunities also of acquiring old as well as new
books. An interest had already been excited in the old editions of the
classics. Besides those of Aldus, those of Elzivir were sought after
with especial curiosity. But the second-hand book trade was as yet
inconsiderable, except in Halle and Leipzig; it was not easy, unless by
accident or at some auction, for individuals to acquire books which, in
the last century, had been collected by the patricians of the Imperial
cities whose families had gradually died out, or perhaps from monastic
libraries, the books of which had been sold in an underhand way by
unscrupulous monks. An ecclesiastic in the neighbourhood of Graefenthal
in Franconia sold, for twenty-five gulden, which were to be paid by
instalments, many ells of folios and quartos beautifully bound; the
ells of the larger-sized books were somewhat dearer than those of the
smaller ones; many works were of course incomplete, because, the
measurement being precise, the ell was shorter than the number of
volumes. There was no choice allowed. It was generally the backs that
were measured. This barbarism, however, was an exception.

Those authors who wrote books, if in high repute, obtained from the
booksellers an amount of compensation far from insignificant. Their
position, in this respect, had much improved since the beginning of the
century. As the predilection for theological and legal treatises still
continued, they were sometimes more highly paid than they would be now.
He, nevertheless, who did not stand, as university teacher, on the
vantage-ground of science, gained but a small income. When the Right
Rev. Herr Lesser, in 1737, made an agreement with his publisher for the
publication of "the Chronicle of Nordhausen," he was "satisfied" to
take as payment for each sheet of that conscientious work, the sum of
sixteen _gute groschen_, which he was to receive in the shape of books,
but at the same time to promise that, in case the contents of his work
should involve the publisher in any troubles with the authorities, he
would indemnify him.

In the latter part of the morning the apothecary's shop became a
pleasant rendezvous for the city gentry. There, politics and city news
were d