Page:Works of Charles Dickens, ed. Lang - Volume 2.djvu/527



Lant Street. In that street, in the back attic of a house occupied by "an Insolvent Court agent," Dickens lodged, in the second period of his employment in the blacking warehouse. "My Prooshan Blue." This term of endearment has greatly engaged the attention of scholiasts. Mr. Dickens himself, according to Sir Walter Besant, was unable to explain a phrase which he may "have heard in a crowd." I would diffidently observe that, in 1829, Lockhart wrote to Scott to the following effect:— "The King" (George IV.) "is dreaming of dressing the Guards, and afterwards all the infantry, in blue. This is the Duke of Cumberland's Prussian nonsense." Rumours of His Majesty's intentions may have reached the public, and given rise to the phrase, "My Prooshan Blue." Or, like the effigy of the Marquis of Granby, it may have survived from the days of our ally, the Protestant hero. I only, in the phrase of Calverley's Examination Paper, "hazard a conjecture explanatory of the expression."

"The Profeel Machine."

Doubtless that by which silhouettes were taken, not in "bright colours." The machine is illustrated in The Strand, November, 1896. "Tipcheese." Probably Tip-cat was meant; the game at which Bunyan was distinguishing himself when he "had a call."