In a number of "Notes and Queries,' in an article maintaining that Cleopatra was Greek, and not Egyptian, the writer says: "I have taken some trouble in investigating the matter, and I cannot discover that she had a single drop of Egyptian blood in her veins; and, if she had not, surely the residence of her family in Egypt for some two hundred and fifty years would not alone suffice to give the most notorious member of it purely Egyptian features and Egyptian skin. The Americans of the United States have not become North American Indians, although some maintain they are on the road."

Will some well-informed reader of "Notes and Queries" favor me with some direct reference to any books or authors who maintain the view in regard to our becoming Indianized, as indefinitely mentioned in the last paragraph in the question of Cleopatra's origin? ДАКОТАН.

The retail booksellers in Italy, as here, are complaining of the action of the publishers in allowing large discounts to individual buyers, insomuch as the buyers deal directly with the publishers to so large an extent that the profits of the retail trade are alarmingly reduced. The publishers retort that the retail dealers lack so much in enterprise as to render this action necessary, for they exhibit no enterprise in ordering books and keeping them on their shelves. This of itself would seem rather an absurd excuse for selling books at a discount. Retail dealers will not be stimulated otherwise than by the opportunity of making reasonable profits, and if publishers deprive them of this by their own mistaken action they alone are to blame. The object of the wholesale dealers must be to secure the individual knowledge of the buyer, and in a measure render themselves independent of country distributors. Why is not the retail booksellers' money as good

as that of the private buyer? The familia question of a would-be buyer, to a reta bookseller, is not "can you supply such an such books?" but," how much discount c you allow?" If the bookseller is anxio to make a sale he is obliged to offer h books at, or about cost, and even then h fond hopes are frequently dashed by t would-be purchaser telling him that su and such a large wholesale dealer offered the books for less. Why is not t wholesale book business sufficiently pro able in itself as a wholesale business? Do the retail trade, which the publishers by selling to private buyers, remuner them for the trouble, and does it suffi ently compensate them for the misund standing and ill feeling which it frequen excites in those who would otherwise enabled to make their own living, and a source of revenue to book-makers.

Editor AMERICAN BIBLIOPOLIST:

In reply to a query at p. 218 of your July August number:

"Zophiel" is the name of a poem, by Mrs. M Brooks, who used the pseudonym of "Maria Occidente." See Duychinck's" Cyclopædia of A ican Literature."

Again, in reply to E. B. Harris, same page line:

"Though lost to sight to memory dear,

I do not believe to belong in any poetical com tion, but to have been composed as it stands, "posy" to a ring, or for some similar purpos have hunted for it without success, and was once that it was in Cuthbert Shaw's elegy on his w but 'tisn't.

N.B. On this supposition it is not a "quota

but a motto.

New York, August 3, 1871.

P

CINCINNATI, August 7, 18

Editor of BIBLIOPOLIST:

Your correspondent who asks "who was Z (Maria del Occidente?)" will find information cerning her in Allibone's "Dictionary,” vol I. p and in Griswold's "Poets of America." T also a review of her works in E. A. Poe's vol. I. Respectfully, E. B. HAR