Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/162

 130 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vii. AUG. u, 1020. puce a definite shade ? It is difficult to obtain an exact definition of puce colour. The City guilds, revelling as they do in antiquity, "might well embellish their halls with their distinctive livery, even if they do not obey the summons of the Lord Mayor to "appear in their gowns " at elections of that functionary. But if so disposed, they must first know what the livery is. E. L. P. MAJOR DYNGWELL. Referred to in Stevenson's essay on 'Talk and Talkers.' Who was he ? FREDK. PAGE. MICHAEL MOUNTAIN ("Michel de Mon- taigne " anglicized). A series of articles over this pseudonym appeared in either the Pall Mall Gazette or the St. James's Gazette under Fdk. Greenwood's editorship. I should be glad of the exact reference to paper and dates. FREDK. PAGE. CHINNERY. Of what branch of this family were the ladies mentioned below ? Matilda Marianna C., m. about 1835, Col. Irton Hodgson of the Indian Army. Elizabeth Marianna C., m. Macleod, and died his widow as Lady Maeleod. A third sister (name unknown) died a spinster : all of them at fairly advanced ages between (?) 1380 and 1890. It is probable that they were the children of some military or civilian officer of the old H.E.I.C. Or they may have been daughters of some merchant or planter in India. Z!so descendant of either of the married sisters is surviving. W. C. J. IN PRAISE OF INDEXING. I am desirous of obtaining a representative collection 01 quotations, setting forth the virtues Q index-making. I possess extracts from Fuller, Disraeli and Huint, but there must be many other writers to whom the value o such a key was apparent and who said so A reviewer in The Athenceum not long since wrote : " A man who starts by compiling an index any index is beginning" his literarv life at the right end." WILLIAM DE CASTRE. BISCUIT CHINA. All the experts agree that china which has undergone a single firing is known in the trade as "biscuit. But as this word in French means " twice oked " it is not easy to see how it acquirec its technical trade meaning, unless it has been merely adopted from France and usec denote the lightness and brittleness of biscuit. * The Xew English Dictionary * gives this technical meaning (the first [notation being dated 1791), but does not xplain or comment on the contradiction mplied. . J. E. HARTTNG. MACAULAY QUERIES. Boswell's ' Letters o the Rev. W. J. Temple ' were first pub- shed, I believe, in January, 1857. Lord Macaulay died Dec. 28, 1859. Is there any locumentary evidence to show that Macaulay ever read them ? FREDK. C. WHITE. 14 Esplanade, Lowestoft. RIVERS FAMILY. Can any reader give any information concerning the antecedents of John Rivers, born in Kent, about 1816 1817, probably near Chatham, who died at Hampton-on-Thames about 1872, and is buried there ? He married Sarah Morris, daughter of Evan Morris, fanner and miller, who was born at Llangcllen, Glam. John Rivers lived for some years at Preston, Suffolk, and was a skilful gardener and horticultural judge. He was in the habit of referring to his grandfather as Lord Rivers, and named a rose " Lady Rivers." He had an elder brother, Richard Rivers, a cooper at Greenwich. W. H. JULIA, DAUGHTER OF CJESAR THE DIC- TATOR. Could any one supply me with allusions in literature to Julia, daughter of Julius C?esar and wife of Pompey ? I know the references which are the sources for her story (r. Smith's 'Dictionary of Classical Biography ') and the passage in St. Augus- tine's ' De Civitate Dei ' ; I am seeking allusions in later writers. PEREGRINUS. "THROWING IN THE TOWEL." In the published accounts of more than one recent " glove fight," the expression is used that the seconds of the defeated competitor "threw in the towel." When did this equivalent for the old-accustomed phrase in this regard " threw up the sponge " come first into use ? A. R. EMERSON'S ' ENGLISH TRAITS.' 1. Chap. v. Emerson says that the Duke of Wellington, when he came to the Army in Spain, had every man weighed, first "with his accoutrements, and then without ; believing that the force of an army depended on the weight and power of "the individual soldiers. Where did