_Books by the Yard_.--Many of your readers have heard of books bought
and sold by weight,--in fact it is questionable whether the _number_ of
books sold in that way is not greater than those sold "over the
counter,"--but few have probably heard of books sold "by the yard."
Having purchased at St. Petersburg, the library left by an old Russian
nobleman of high rank, I was quite astonished to find a copy of _Oeuvres
de Frederic II_. originally published in 15 vols., divided into 60, to
each of which a new title had been printed; and several hundred volumes
lettered outside _Oeuvres de Miss Burney, Oeuvres de Swift,_ &c., but
containing, in fact, all sorts of French waste paper books. These, as
well as three editions of _Oeuvres de Voltaire_, were all very neatly
bound in calf, gilt and with red morrocco backs. My curiosity being
roused, I inquired into the origin of these circumstances, and learnt
that during the reign of Catherine, every courtier who had hopes of
being honoured by a visit from the Empress, was expected to have a
library, the greater or smaller extent of which was to be regulated by
the fortune of its possessor, and that, after Voltaire had won the
favour of the Autocrat by his servile flattery, one or two copies of his
works were considered indispensable. Every courtier was thus forced to
have rooms filled with books, by far the greater number of which he
never read or even opened. A bookseller of the name of Klostermann, who,
being of an athletic stature, was one of the innumerable favourites of
the lady, "who loved all things save her lord," was usually employed,
not to select a library, but to fill a certain given space of so many
yards with books, at so much per volume, and Mr. Klostermann, the
"Libraire de la Cour Imperiale," died worth a plum, having sold many
thousand yards of books (among which I understood there were several
hundred copies of Voltaire), at from 50 to 100 roubles a yard,
"according to the binding."
A. ASHER. Berlin. Dec. 1849.
_Thistle of Scotland_.--R.L. will find the thistle first introduced on
coins during the reign of James V., although the motto "Nemo me impune
lacessit" was not adopted until two reigns later.--See Lindsay's
_Coinage of Scotland_, Longman, 1845.