"John Bull" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recovering his confidence]. Ah! it was only your delightful Irish humor, Mr Keegan. Of course, of course. How stupid of me! I'm so sorry. [He pats Keegan consolingly on the back]. John Bull's wits are still slow, you see. Besides, calling me a hypocrite was too big a joke to swallow all at once, ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... abolitionist, because he thinks he's protected by that flag of their'n. If he don't take care, we'll tar-and-feather him; and if his government says much about it, she'll larn what and who South Carolina is. We can turn out a dozen Palmetto regiments that'd lick any thing John Bull could send here, and a troop o' them d—d Yankee abolitionists besides. South Carolina's got to show her hand yet against these fellers, afore they'll respect the honor and standing of her institutions. They can't send their navy to hurt us. And it shows that I always ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... greater power of patronage and personal influence than the Queen. The real difference is not between the forms of government, but between the innate flunkeyism of the Briton and the independence of the American. If we had the British government in every detail, and if John Bull were to adopt our system, the countries would stand where they were, and each gradually 'reform' itself, according to its ideas of reform, back into the old routine. The Englishman, needing 'my Lord' and 'Her Gracious Majesty,' and as unable to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Apollo, he could not find a better than the man before us, for, you will observe, the more objectionable points about our ideal of the negro are not very prominent in him. His lips are not thicker than the lips of many a roast-beef-loving John Bull. His nose is not flat, and his heels do not protrude unnecessarily. True, his hair is woolly, but that is scarcely a blemish. It might almost be regarded as the crisp and curly hair that surrounds a manly skull. His skin is black—no doubt ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... John Bull little difference spied 'Twixt the foe at his feet or the friend at his side; When he found, such his humor in fighting and eating, His foe, like beefsteak, ...
— A Poetical Cook-Book • Maria J. Moss
... whole British race, centred upon the little town in mid-Natal where Sir George White with his army maintained a valiant resistance against a strenuous and determined foe without, and disease and hunger and death within, until, to use his own words, that slow-moving giant John Bull should pass from his slumber and bestir himself to take back his own. For that reason alone the story of Ladysmith will remain memorable. But it is a story which is brilliant in brave deeds, which tells of danger boldly faced, of noble self-sacrifice ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... learning vain, Beholds the fop with deep disdain: The fop, with spirit as discerning, Looks down upon the man of learning. The Spanish Don—a solemn strutter— Despises Gallic airs and flutter: Whilst the Gaul ridicules the Don, And John Bull looks with like disdain On manners both of France and Spain: They hold, indeed, a deed tripartite To see each other in a tart light. 'Tis thus the bard is scorned by those Who only deal in learned prose: Whilst bards of quick imagination Are hipped by the dull prose oration. Men scoff at apes: ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... were thought to be fabulous animals; and the ill-treated Le Vaillant was supposed to have invented them, in spite of the description which the Romans left of them. He was a little poetical in his style of writing, which John Bull is not fond of when facts are narrated, so John Bull begged to doubt his assertions. He lived, however, to see his veracity established, which the kind old man, a year or two before his death, assured me was a great happiness to him. Lord Caledon brought a skin home from the Cape, and badly ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... hope that our sailors will put a few pepper-corns into it on the Guinea coast, so that our friends on the Thames may not digest it too rapidly." The sequel will show whether the simile correctly describes either the state of John Bull's appetite or the easy aloofness ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... "But you are not quite English, are you?" And I swore by the nine gods of my ancestry that I was nothing else. But the look is in us: my father had a foreign air, but made up for it by so violent a patriotism that Uncle N. used to call him "John Bull let loose." ...
— An Englishwoman's Love-Letters • Anonymous
... understood, even by those who most violently disagree with me, that these strictures are passed, not upon Blackmore's novel, but upon the spirit of the age which made John Ridd the hero of such a novel, the spirit which in the dress of "John Bull" has insistently presented our less attractive qualities to the outside world as the true Englishman, and which has been, by the outside world, adopted and disliked; while such admirable traits as sincerity, disinterestedness, ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... of the Catholic Hierarchy, September 29th, 1850, brought on what appeared to us one of John Bull's periodical fits of lunacy. I witnessed many scenes of mob violence at the time, when, in deference to the prevailing bigotry in opposing what they termed "Papal Aggression" a part of the Penal Laws were revived in Lord John Russell's ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... excessively stimulating climate. An old-fashioned sea-captain put it all into a sentence when he said that he could drink a bottle of wine with his dinner in Liverpool and only a half a bottle in New York. Explain the cause as we may, the fact seems to be that the body of John Bull changes, in the United States, into the body of ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... was out of my native country,' said the Doctor. 'I once, indeed, was about making the grand tour with a pupil of mine at Oxford, but circumstances interfered which changed his plans, and so I remain a regular John Bull.' ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... the French are a shrewd nation. We were wont to think of old that there was more spite than intelligence in the epithet by which they characterized John Bull as 'perfidious.' They were right, for time has shown us that Venice, in the full bloom of her night-shade iniquity and poniard policy, was never falser at heart than this great, brawling, boasting, beef-eating England—this 'merry England' of paupers and prisons, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of the English people, just as it was necessary to destroy his power in order to get the ground open for the {97} arrangement of the treaty. Swift set himself to this task with a malignity equal to his genius. Arbuthnot, hardly inferior as a satirist to Swift, wrote a "History of John Bull," to hold up Marlborough and Marlborough's wife to ridicule and to hatred. He depicted the great soldier as a low and roguish attorney, who was deluding his clients into the carrying on of a long and costly lawsuit for the mere sake of putting money into his own ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... as lovingly as if it had been a Cavalier's? Did not lads and lasses run out shouting? Did not the old yeoman father hug him, weep over him, hold him at arm's length, and hug him again, as heartily as any other John Bull, even though the next moment he called all to kneel down and thank Him who had sent his boy home again, after bestowing on him the grace to bind kings in chains and nobles with links of iron, and contend to death for the faith delivered to the saints? And ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... Jackson, he was wide awake, And was not scared at trifles, For well he knew Kentucky's boys, With their death-dealing rifles. He led them down to cypress swamp, The ground was low and mucky, There stood John Bull in martial pomp, And here ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... told be true, it exhibited the most singular sagacity. Not having seen it myself, I can only give the general report. But, beyond all question, it has been the wonder of London for years, and however willing John Bull may be to be deluded, there is no instance of his being deluded long. This bird's chief faculty was singing, seldom a parrot faculty, but its ear was so perfect, that it acquired tunes with great rapidity, and retained them with such remarkable exactness, that if, by accident, it made a mistake ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... home, lest it disturb the balance of power. The British journals, which had warbled so sweetly anent their American cousins and "the indissoluble bond of Anglo-Saxon brotherhood," when there was a fair prospect that John Bull would have to toe the scratch alone, at once forgot the blessed ties of consanguinity and assured the bombastic Spaniard that he would have "plenty of help should he decide to humble American impudence." The press of France and Germany discoursed in much the same ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... all these and of many others who might be mentioned, not forgetting several English writers, such as Dr. Blow, Dr. John Bull and the gifted artist Purcell (see p. 350), must be regarded as merely preparatory for the advance made during the last part of the eighteenth century. It was Haydn who began to demand of the pianoforte more of breadth, and a certain coloration ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... be a great deal to pay for a diamond or a palace, but it is a mere trifle compared with the sums which Britain lavishes whenever Britons are in need of deliverance if they happen to be imprisoned abroad. The King of Ashantee had captive some British subjects—not even of English birth—in 1869. John Bull despatched General Wolseley with the pick of the British army, who smashed Koffee Kalkallee, liberated the captives, and burnt Coomassie, and never winced when the bill came in for 750,000. But that was a mere trifle. When King Theodore, of Abyssinia, made captives ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... to poets and the Muses, was himself little more than an occasional versifier; and Arbuthnot, who had as much wit as the best of them, chose to shew it in prose, and not in verse. He had a very notable share in the immortal History of John Bull, and the inimitable and praiseworthy Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus. There has been a great deal said and written about the plagiarisms of Sterne; but the only real plagiarism he has been guilty of (if such theft were a crime), is in taking Tristram Shandy's father from Martin's, the elder ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... national verdicts are apt to be superficial. Mr. Leslie Stephen, in a review of Hawthorne, has commented on the extent to which the nobler qualities and conquering energy of the English character are hidden, not only from foreigners, but from ourselves, by the "detestable lay figure" of John Bull. In like manner, the obtrusive type of the "canny Scot" is apt to make critics forget the hot heart that has marked the early annals of the country, from the Hebrides to the Borders, with so much ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... downright vigour of homely language he could scarcely be surpassed even by the author of the Drapier's Letters. He had enlisted as a soldier, and had afterwards drifted to America. There he had become conspicuous as a typical John Bull. Sturdy and pugnacious in the highest degree, he had taken the English side in American politics when the great question was whether the new power should be bullied by France or by England. He had denounced his precursor, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... has produced imperishable monuments of the ardent human soul. The tribe of Oxford is the tribe from whose heart sprang the Psalms of David; Homer and Sophocles, Plato and Virgil, Dante and Goethe are all of the same divine company. It may be said that John Bull, the sturdy angel of England, turns his back slightingly upon such influences; that he regards Oxford as an incidental ornament of his person, like a seal that jingles at his fob. But all generous and ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... outline of John Bull—the shadow on the wall of John Mattock. The unostentatious millionaire's legacy to his two children affected Mr. Bull thrillingly, pretty nearly as it has here been dotted in lining. That is historical. Could he believe in the existence of a son of his, a master of millions, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that they will be left secure in their poverty and their fastnesses, there, according to their proverb, "to listen to the wind upon the hill till the waters abate." But they will be disappointed; they have been too often troublesome to be so repeatedly passed over, and this time John Bull has been too heartily frightened to recover his good humour for some time. The Hanoverian ministers always deserved to be hanged for rascals; but now, if they get the power in their hands,—as, sooner or later, they must, since ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... may our young men be volunteers, while the unflinching pride of those they have left behind them in their deed of sacrifice ought to satisfy the most apprehensive that we are not a timid race, who cannot face unpleasant facts! The last thing in the world John Bull wants is to be mollycoddled. The people must be told exactly what the position is, and then we can ask them to help. We must appeal for the co-operation of employers, workmen, and the general public; the three must act and endure together, or we delay and maybe imperil ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... did I work to obtain your praise! All that the combined force of vanity and hatred could inspire I performed, and with success. You have but little curiosity, I presume, to know how many hogsheads of port went down the throat of John Bull, or how many hecatombs were offered up to the genius of English liberty. My hatred to Mrs. Luttridge was, of course, called love of my country. Lady Delacour was deified by all true patriots; and, luckily, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... convent in the outskirts of Paris, and her first communion was delayed till she should "make" it in that more pious atmosphere. The O'Keeffe convoyed her across the two Channels, and took the opportunity of visiting a "variety" theatre in Montmartre, where he was delighted to find John Bull and his inelegant womenkind so faithfully delineated. So exhilarated was he by this excellent take-off and a few bocks on the Boulevard, that he refused to get down from the omnibus at ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... well as the strength, of his jury. He must address their habits, passions, and prejudices, as the only means to gain this sudden conquest of their minds and hearts. Such was the author's success on the representation of "John Bull." The hearts and minds of his auditors were captivated, and proved, to demonstration, his skilful insight into ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman
... is unanswerable," replied the polite Italian; "that is to say, so far as she goes. Yes! I agree with her. John Bull does abhor the crimes of John Chinaman. He is the quickest old gentleman at finding out faults that are his neighbours', and the slowest old gentleman at finding out the faults that are his own, who exists on the face of creation. Is he so very much better ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... sensation was now caused by the appearance of "An Englishman" from Carmelite Street. This gentleman, who, like the man who dined with the KAISER, desiring his anonymity to be respected, wore a John Bull mask and brandished an ebony cane, made the PRIME MINISTER the special mark of his attack. What, he asked, could be expected of a politician so crafty and lost to shame as to bid the House wait and see? Was it not the very essence of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various
... government is a beast; and as difficult things sometimes explain each other, we now see the origin of keeping wild beasts in the Tower; for they certainly can be of no other use than to show the origin of the government. They are in the place of a constitution. O John Bull, what honours thou hast lost by not being a wild beast. Thou mightest, on Mr. Burke's system, have been in the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... then chose who should be chief men in our islands. Branwell chose John Bull, Astley Cooper, and Leigh Hunt; Emily, Walter Scott, Mr. Lockhart, Johnny Lockhart; Anne, Michael Sadler, Lord Bentinck, Sir Henry Halford. I chose the Duke of Wellington and two sons, Christopher North and Co., and Mr. Abernethy. Here our conversation ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... being broken into floods of drenching foam visitors get wet-through in—this unsubstantial-looking piece of cage-work expanded as soon as it was well out in the open channel, and almost provided John Bull with another "other island." And whereon the pier-company's sordid commercialism had suggested the construction of a Chinese joss-house, or Indian bungalow—our description is a random one—that lent itself, or was lent by ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... was an admirable citizen, beloved in his own country and not without cause, as Universities and Public Bodies innumerable could testify. For twenty-five years it had been known that he had been trying for a goal. At last he had won it—and then John Bull!... Ya-as.... ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... heard us speaking in his own language, which we did with a view of drawing John Bull out, and he asked a passage in the boat I had ordered, as far as Interlachen. Conditioning that he should make the detour to the Giesbach, his application was admitted, and we proceeded forthwith. This was the fourth time I had crossed the lake of Brientz, but the first in which ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the edge of his satire; while Lord Thurlow, the great Lord Chancellor, was in no way neglected. Thus we find a "New Way to pay the National Debt" (1786), "Ancient Music" (1787), "Monstrous Craws" (1787), "Frying Sprats" (1791) and "Anti-Saccharites, or John Bull and his Family leaving off the use of Sugar" (1792), are all directed against the reigning House, and allude frequently to the parsimonious habits of George III. and his Queen. The story goes that this monarch, having remarked of Gillray's drawings, ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... last division of the "Soldier tired," affront my friends by saluting them with "Adieu thou dreary pile," or annoy my father with shouting "The Austrian trumpet's loud alarms" at a moment when, with all the fervour of true John Bull anti-gallicanism, he was lamenting over Ulm and Austerlitz; execrating Mack, pitying Francis and Alexander, and cursing the victorious Napoleon by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various
... unscrupulous persons whose profession it is to be bulls, bears, stags, and I know not what other creatures of the various Christian markets. It is all nonsense about hawks not picking out each other's eyes—there is nothing they like better. I feared The Guardian, The Record, The John Bull, etc., lest they should suggest that from a bear I now turned bull with a view to an eventual bishopric. Such insinuations would have impaired the value of The Fair Haven as an anchorage for well-meaning people. ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... convention, which must, of course, supersede Parliament. As those societies grew more mature, instead of becoming more rational they exhibited more savage ferocity. Placards were distributed in the form of a playbill, announcing, "For the Benefit of John Bull, La Guillotine," or, "George's Head in a Basket." The airs of their meetings were Ca Ira and the Marseillaise. Attempts were made to corrupt the army. It was openly declared in their harangues, that it was "impossible to do any thing without some bloodshed, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... of English antipathy to the Federal Union. It is now only a question of time when we are to be attacked by the great Abolition nation. John Bull is hammering away at his iron-clads and doing his best in every direction to aid the aristocratic and despotic principle, so dear to his soul—nay, which is his very soul and self. In China he is helping the Imperialists, whose awful and heart-rending atrocities go beyond all belief—in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... "this military offensive must stop, and at once, if we are successfully to invade England. As soon as Russia makes peace our hands will be free to strike a staggering blow at John Bull. ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... children, he is like a hawk upon the Philistine. I remember an occasion, before he published a volume, when we were together in a tavern in a country-town, a tavern thronged with farmers on market-days. The poet had some prospectuses in his pocket. Suddenly a great John Bull would come bumping in like a cockchafer, and call for his pint. 'Just you watch,' the poet would say, and away he crossed over to his victim. 'Good morning, Mr. Oats!' 'Why, good morning, sir. How-d'ye-do; I hardly know'd thee.' Then presently the voice of the charmer unto the farmer—'Mr. Oats, ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... once I've pierced the disguise of your extremely courteous cosmopolitanism, and behold! there's John Bull underneath, rampantly sure that nobody can be a really justified patriot ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... 1855 clipper-ships were built for nearly every trade,[GW] and they were on every sea. Some of the first were employed in the transatlantic packet service. More became engaged particularly in the "booming" trade to California, in the long-voyage traffic to China and India.[GX] "When John Bull came floating into San Francisco, or Sydney, or Melbourne, he used to find Uncle Sam sitting carelessly, with his legs dangling over the wharf, smoking his pipe, with his cargo sold and his pockets full of ...
— Manual of Ship Subsidies • Edwin M. Bacon
... therefore, when evening fell, I again commended myself to Heaven, and lay down, utterly exhausted. In the morning, as soon as I woke, I made toward the nearest of the cleared lands which I had seen the day before; and that afternoon I reached the house of John Bull, an old acquaintance. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... BALFOUR told the Irish Nationalists that Great Britain was not to be bored into acceptance of Home Rule; but I am beginning to doubt now whether he was right. If the Government get the Bill through it will be due more to John Bull's weariness of the eternal Irish Question than to any enthusiastic belief in the merits of this particular scheme. Hardly anyone off the Treasury Bench had a good word to say for it, but fortunately for its chances their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... of John Bull. That's the only thing of John Bull you have about you. For the sake of my ears I ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... in New York State; author of "History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan," and the novels "The Dutchman's Fireside" ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... bang!" challenged another "express," the shots so close together as to be almost simultaneous. "Crack! crack! crack!" retorted the Winchesters, and from the fact that silence followed I drew a clear inference. I said to myself, "That is an end of poor John Bull." ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... great and venerable personages who indulge in an extensive curiosity, I should never arrive at the end of my subject. Lawyers and physicians are eternal questionists; the clergy are curious, especially on agricultural affairs; the first nobles in the land take in the "John Bull" and the "Age" to gratify the most prurient curiosity. The gentlemen of the Stock Exchange live only from one story to another, and are miserable if a "great man's butler looks grave," without their knowing why. So general indeed is this passion, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... O'Rell, "is but John Bull expanded—John Bull with plenty of elbow room." And the same thing is said again and again in different phraseology by various Continental writers. It is said most impressively by those who do not put ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... Clerk. The Deputy-Mayor came out, and they deposited before him a bag containing their passes of the previous month and politely signified their intention not to buy any more passes. Then there occurred what 'John Bull' would call, "——l with ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... Louis will not cut throats and lop off heads, and that Wellington will not blow up bridges and monuments, and plunder palaces and galleries. As to Bonaparte, they have disposed of him in a thousand ways; every fat-sided John Bull has him dished up in a way to please his own palate, excepting that as yet they have not observed the first direction in the famous receipt to cook a turbot,—'First catchy our turbot.'" Then comes a postscript: "The bells are ringing, and this moment news is brought ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... soil, commercial advantages, great water privileges, its proximity to the mother country, and last, not least, its almost total exemption from taxation—that bugbear which keeps honest John Bull in a state of constant ferment—were the theme of every tongue, and lauded beyond all praise. The general interest, once excited, was industriously kept alive by pamphlets, published by interested parties, which prominently set ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... them to inconvenience, possibly at first to great expense; and yet facts which you can neither see nor handle, but must accept and pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for, on the mere word of a doctor or inspector who gets his living thereby. Poor John Bull! To expect that you would accept such a gospel cheerfully was indeed to ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... John Bull for pastime took a prance, Some time ago, to peep at France; To talk of sciences and arts, And knowledge gained in foreign parts. Monsieur, obsequious, heard him speak, And answered John in heathen Greek; To all he asked, 'bout all he saw, 'Twas, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... ships make the procession through the canal—the ninety miles of slow travelling which saves them the cost of circumnavigating the great continent of Africa. They pay well for it, and the owners of the canal shares wax fat. England controls the canal, the construction of which John Bull attempted in every manner to prevent. English ships bound from "home" to Bombay cut down the distance from 10,860 miles to 4,620 miles by taking the canal route, and the vast majority of ships which pay tolls to the canal company ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... can recollect, she is the first royal defunct in childbed upon record in our history. I feel sorry in every respect—for the loss of a female reign, and a woman hitherto harmless; and all the lost rejoicings, and addresses, and drunkenness, and disbursements, of John Bull on the occasion. ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... bewildered editor, who confused person and place in an incredible manner, and was obliged to acknowledge that he had been the victim of his own imagination, only shows how the paroxysms of sudden passion and indignation to which John Bull is liable, may lead to the most ridiculous mistakes. However, there must be some fire where there is smoke, and one or two unfortunate events gave colour to the assertion, persistently made, that asylums were the abodes of injustice and cruelty. A Select ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... proposition! But it was all in vain. There was a bluff English frankness about the Minister that mightily pleased the country, exciting a sympathy in every right-thinking Englishman. Here was no humbug of any sort, no obtaining of money under false pretences. At first hearing of it, honest John Bull staggered back several paces, with a face rueful and aghast; buttoned up his pockets, and meditated violence even; but, in a few moments, albeit with a certain sulkiness, he came back, presently shook hands with the Minister, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... clean," writes an English traveler in France in the year 1789; "so far from being meagre and ill-looking fellows, as John Bull would persuade us, they are well-formed, tall, handsome men, and have a cheerfulness and civility in their countenances and manner which is peculiarly pleasing. They also looked very healthy, great care is taken ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... masquerading, notwithstanding the temptation of the turnkey's wardrobe; and I felt all that absence of accommodation to circumstances, that want of plasticity, that failure of grasping at every hair's-breadth of enjoyment, which is declared by foreigners to form the prodigious deficiency of John Bull. If I could have taken refuge, for that night at least, in the saddest cell of the old convent, or in the deepest dungeon of the new prison, I should have gone to either with indulgence. I longed to lay down my aching brains upon my pillow, and forget the fever of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... the vessel sails again. This is to prevent emancipation, as they call it, or abolition, I know not which. An Englishman comes in from the islands with a crew of blacks, and, according to law, the authorities of Charleston house them all before night. John Bull complains to his minister, and his minister sends a note to our secretary, and our secretary writes to the Governor of Carolina, calling on him to respect the treaty, and so on. Gentlemen, I need not tell you what a treaty is—it is a thing in itself to be obeyed; ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... caricatures. One fine Sunday afternoon I sat with a friend by the walk in Kensington Gardens that leads to the bridge, and which on such occasions is thronged by promenaders. It was agreed between us that whichever first caught sight of a typical John Bull should call the attention of the other. We sat and watched keenly for many minutes, but neither of us found ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... mytie! I got more'n two 'undred now an' this supposed to be a bloomin' clean shirt! Why, the blinkin' thing's as lousy as a cookoo now, an me just a-gittin' rid o' the bloomin' chats on me old un. Strike me pink if it hain't a bleedin' crime! Some one ought to write to John Bull abaht it!" ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... still for us the great scholar and the strongly marked individuality, but he has gradually attained a kind of apotheosis, a kind of semi-legendary position, almost rivalling that of the great John Bull himself, as the {9} embodiment of the essential features of the English character. We never think of the typical Englishman being like Shakespeare or Milton. In the first place, we know very little about Shakespeare, and not very much ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... industrial class of employees in the manufacturing and urban districts, and a peasant population rooted to the land. There are, of course, many local modifications of this form: in France the nobility is mostly expropriated; in England, since the days of John Bull, the peasant has lost his common rights and his holding, and become an "agricultural labourer" to a newer class of more extensive farmer. But these are differences in detail; the fact of the organisation, and the still more important fact of the traditional ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... for the peace. Goodbye for the present. We shall convey the joint compliments of John Bull and Uncle Sam to the peoples of the planets when we ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... nobody questioned him; the train officials were civil and incurious, and went calmly about their business with all the traditional stolidity of official John Bull. ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... strike him, he never will rest quiet under the dishonour; yet you seldom or ever hear of quarrels ending in murder. The dagger and pistol are weapons in a manner unknown. The fist, a la mode de John Bull, is commonly the ultimatum ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... delays, and public interest in the case would have slumbered had it not been for the newspapers. But a steady-going England, on whose John Bull qualities of reticence and solidity we have been prone to pride ourselves, does occasionally betray a quicker and more curious spirit than it commonly desires to be credited with, and there is no pole to stir it from its hybernating sleep which reaches so far and punches the fat ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... nesting begins, it is less frequent. One year there was a nest in the laurels at Otterbourne House (since taken away), and at eight in the morning and seven at night the nightingale came on the lawn to feed, and was every morning chased by a surly John Bull of a robin. When the young are coming out of the nest the parents chide them, or strangers, in a peculiarly ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... creatures. It does one good to see honest, heavy epiciers, fathers of families, playing with them in the Tuileries, or, as to-night, bearing them stoutly on their shoulders, through many long hours, in order that the little ones too may have their share of the fun. John Bull, I fear, is more selfish: he does not take Mrs. Bull to the public-house; but leaves her, for the most part, to take care of the ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... party of tradesmen engaged at high-jinks. These were the manners and pleasures of Hogarth, of his time very likely, of men not very refined, but honest and merry. It is a brave London citizen, with John Bull habits, prejudices, and pleasures.(146) ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Scolding of the Ancients"—a wit, whose grave irony, keen perception of the ridiculous, and magical power of turning the lead of learning into the most fine gold of humour, exhibited in his "Martinus Scriblerus," his "Epitaph on the notorious Colonel Chartres," and his "History of John Bull," still extract shouts, screams, and tears of mirth from thousands who scarce know the author's name—a politician without malice or self-seeking—and, best of all, a man without guile, and a Christian without cant. He, although a ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... Toward John Bull there is no mercy. He is shown naked, trying to hide himself with neutral flags; he is sprawled in his mill with a river of French blood flowing by from the battle-fields of France, while the cartoonist asks France if she ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... to old honest John Bull, When he's gone we shan't find such another, And with hearts and with glasses brim full, We will drink ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... John Bull, the sea, 'The Times' in the morning, and, besides, some dozens of fellow-creatures. The learned class has greatly sunk in Germany, more than I supposed; all behindhand.... Nothing appears of any importance; the most ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... class of hotel, John Bull comes in first. He does not look happy. John Bull loves privacy. He does not like to be obliged to eat in the presence of lots of people who have not been introduced to him, and he thinks it very hard he should not have the whole dining-room to himself. ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... more good criticism than any of the serious writings of the generation, and it abounds in the most biting strokes of wit. Arbuthnot is supposed to have been the sole author of the whimsical, national satire called the "History of John Bull," the best work of the class produced in that day. The "Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu" belong to ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... the Rocky Mountains, kills elephants in India and salmon on the coast of Labrador, comes home, and very likely makes a book. But the scope of his ideas does not seem to be enlarged by all this. The body travels, not the mind. And, however he may abuse his own land, he returns home as hearty a John Bull, with all his prejudices and national tastes as rooted, as before. The English—the men of fortune—all travel. Yet how little sympathy they show for other people or institutions, and how slight is the interest they take in them! They are islanders, cut off from ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... wet with British blood and paved with British gold. The noblest things in Egypt are British; the vilest are the products of aliens who have dodged justice and cleanness through the vagaries of "The Capitulations" (an international treaty which makes John Bull pay for the privilege of entertaining alien murderers, white slavers, forgers, assassins, corrupt financiers, and legal twisters). But it is a land worth holding, not so much for any riches it may possess, but for the Suez Canal, which links us ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... this, you will not consider my opinion good for anything, and therefore I need not inflict it upon you. Humbugs, however, will explode in the present state of the atmosphere, and the Austrian humbug, for instance, is at last, God be praised for it, exploding. John Bull, I suppose, will work himself into a fine fever about that; but he will think none the worse of the old ladies in Downing Street who are made fools of: and will be none the better disposed to listen to people who told him all along how it would be. However, in the penal fatuity ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... young man to hold such a responsible position in the navy; but he was a bold, vigorous little Englishman—a sort of gentlemanly and well-educated John Bull terrier; of frank address, agreeable manners, and an utterly reckless temperament, which was qualified and curbed, however, by good sense, and ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... impression and finds limited sympathy among ourselves.' 'I am certain,' he wrote to Panizzi (June 21, 1851), 'that the Italian habit of preaching unity and nationality in preference to showing grievances produces a revulsion here; for if there are two things on earth that John Bull hates, they are an abstract proposition and the pope.' 'You need not be afraid, I think,' he told Lord Aberdeen (December 1, 1851), 'of Mazzinism from me, still less of Kossuth-ism, which means the other plus ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... reduced the centre of Dublin to ruins, and the British commanders killed their leading prisoners of war in cold blood morning after morning with an effect of long-drawn-out ferocity. Really it was only the usual childish petulance in which John Bull does things in a week that disgrace him for a century, though he soon recovers his good humor, and cannot understand why the survivors of his wrath do not feel as jolly with him as he does with them. ...
— O'Flaherty V. C. • George Bernard Shaw
... well as he is serving them." So, you see, even in his depression the Englishman has some humour left—e.g., when that old sea dog Lord Fisher heard that Mr. Balfour was to become First Lord of the Admiralty, he cried out: "Damn it! he won't do: Arthur Balfour is too much of a gentleman." So John Bull is now, after all, rather pathetic—depressed as he has not been depressed for at least a hundred years. The nobility and the common man are doing their whole duty, dying on the Bosphorus or in France without a murmur, or facing an insurrection ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure of heaven without any of Savesoul's help) what is that globular 100,000 but a Fast-Fish? What are the Duke of Dunder's hereditary towns and hamlets but Fast-Fish? What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull, is poor Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic lancer, Brother Jonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning all these, is not Possession the whole of the law? But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the kindred doctrine ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... into the singer's extended hat show how fully his efforts are appreciated; but at this moment P——, with the free-and-easy command of a true John Bull, elbows his way through the throng, and calls out: "Holloa, Johnny! we only got the fag-end of that song. Tip us another, and here's five piastres for you" (about ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... ever read anything about myself that struck me so piquantly as that story about the old gentleman. It is almost too good to be true, but you are not in the habit of quizzing. The trait is so naturelike and Dickens-like, no American—no living soul but a peppery, crotchety, good-hearted, mellow old John Bull—could have done such a thing. God bless him! Perhaps the verses are not much, and perhaps he is no great judge whether they are or not: but what a pleasant thing it is to win the hearty liking of any honest creature who is neither your relation nor compatriot, and ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... we arrived at was that, easy as it might be to defraud the bank, yet there was an infinity of detail which would require six months of preparations to carry out. Then, again, the word forgery began to look black in our vocabulary. We knew John Bull was an obstinate fellow when he once got his back up, and we began to think it wise to keep beyond his dull ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... to sundown, and then have worship with them at night. That will be my Christmas. This evening—in the city—all the children and our wives are having a Christmas tree in the theological lecture-room, and on Tuesday next I guess we'll have our dinner. John Bull, Paddy, Sandy, and Taffy all seem to agree in that feature. My Sunday will only be a sample of others. So it goes—working away. Now I must say goodbye. Many thanks and ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... our next question naturally takes the form, Who is the sweater? Who is the person responsible for this state of things? John Bull is concrete, materialistic in his feeling and his reasoning. He wants to find an individual, or a class embodiment of sweating. If he can find the sweater, he is prepared to loathe and abolish him. Our indignation ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... were astir, moving back up the valley. Once again had Ray offered a suggestion,—that they should put back during the night, but Wayne was nettled at the fact that Ray's prophecy had come true. They had stayed too long and gone too far. He was a John Bull sort of fellow, full of the ponderous, bumptious courage which prompts the men of that illustrious island empire to be shot down like cattle by Boers and Zulus and Arabs and Afghans, adhering rigidly to ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... trade—and between their demands for supper, their coarse jokes, and their curses at the lubberliness or loitering of their associates from the other side of the Channel, (for, with all their accompliceship, they had the true John Bull contempt for the seamanship of Monsieur,) they kept the house in an uproar. They expected a cargo from Calais that right, and the idea of losing so favourable an opportunity as the tempest offered, rendered them especially indignant. Scouts were sent out from tine to time to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... all very well at present, and so long as you should keep on good terms with her; but suppose, some fine morning, Exeter Hall got control of the English Government, and hinted to you, in John Bull fashion, that cotton produced by free labor would be more acceptable, what could three, or even eight millions, cut off from the sympathy and support of the North, do in opposition to the power of ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... tinkles, causing the lovely drop-scene—that combined the grandeur of the pretty Parthenon with the sublimity of Virginia Water—to vanish into its own intensely blue sky; disclosing the "Harlequin House that Jack built," and Mr. John Bull's huge paste-board thick head, snoring like thunder, in a "property" summer-house—an elephantine blue-bottle on his proboscis, and a sleeping bull-dog, the size of an Alderney steer, at his feet;—here Master Brown, with a grin, calls the house Victoria Villa, and the paste-board ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... our Cut Nails, our Pins, our Wood Screws, &c. should have been represented. India Rubber is abundant here, but I have seen no Gutta Percha, and our New-York Company (Hudson Manufacturing) might have put a new wrinkle on John Bull's forehead by sending over an assorted case of their fabrics. The Brass and kindred fabrics of Waterbury (Conn.) ought not to have come up missing, and a set of samples of the "Flint Enameled Ware" of Vermont, I should have been proud of for Vermont's sake. A light Jersey wagon, ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... American Republic has had the same, and indeed it was possible that there were a number present who might not cherish any very passionate regard for the wealthy, complaisant, self-contained somewhat slow-going old gentleman, John Bull. But here in Canada, we were all Canadians! First, last and all the time, Canadians (great applause). Whatever might be said of other countries, their wealth, their power, their glory, Canada was good enough for him (more applause, ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... with the glad prose of Jeremy Taylor, and wept over Bowles's Sonnets, and studied Cowper's blank verse, and betook himself to Thomson's Castle of Indolence, and sported with the wits of Charles the Second's days and of Queen Anne, and relished Swift's style and that of the John Bull (Arbuthnot's we mean, not Mr. Croker's), and dallied with the British Essayists and Novelists, and knew all qualities of more modern writers with a learned spirit, Johnson, and Goldsmith, and Junius, and Burke, and Godwin, and the Sorrows of Werter, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... the core—eh? No damned Boers for me—eh? Ha, ha, wipe 'em out, gentlemen, wipe 'em out: old England's all right as long as we've got gentlemen like you to defend us—eh?" (He took us for officers.) "John Bull ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... crammed choke-full with every known mechanical contrivance for the production of ear-stunning noises. Wherever they burst forth into utterance, the whole parish is instantly admonished of their whereabouts, and, with the natural instinct of John Bull for a row—no matter how it originates—forth rushes the crowd to enjoy the dissonance. The piercing notes of a score of shrill fifes, the squall of as many clarions, the hoarse bray of a legion of tin trumpets, the angry and fitful snort of a brigade of rugged bassoons, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... always be relied upon for support, could keep a secret, and had a peculiarly convenient knack of baffling awkward questions by putting on an attitude of utter stolidity. When her eyes were half-closed under their heavy lids, and her mouth wore what the girls called its "John Bull" expression, not even Miss Beasley herself could drag information out of Aveline. The Sphinx, as she was sometimes nicknamed, prided herself on her accomplishment, and took particular care to maintain her character. Raymonde had apportioned ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... fondest hope that Uncle Sam and John Bull, arms locked, as mates, good and true, each knowing and appreciating the worth of the other, will wend their way through the years to come, happy and contented in each other's company. So if this poor attempt of mine will, in any ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... announcement, in the John Bull newspaper, sets this question at rest. It is declared that her ladyship is not the writer of the ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... THE OXUS.—Russia, it is asserted, "intends to annex the whole of the elevated plateaus known as the Pamirs, and all parts of Afghanistan north of a straight line drawn from Lake Victoria to the junction of the Kotcha River with the Oxus." JOHN BULL might say, "I should like to Kotcha ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various
... the composer, as we learn from an account in John Bull (October 26, 1850), assembled in the little chapel of Pere-Lachaise, and after a religious service proceeded with the officiating priest at their head to Chopin's grave. The monument was then unveiled, flowers and garlands were scattered over and around ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... women into the conventional lie of marriage: Mary Wollstonecraft and, later, George Eliot. And recently Puritanism has demanded another toll—the life of Oscar Wilde. In fact, Puritanism has never ceased to be the most pernicious factor in the domain of John Bull, acting as censor of the artistic expression of his people, and stamping its approval only on the ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... has written me two English notes, quite beautiful in ideas, and not very reprehensible in idiom. But English has nothing to do with elegance such as theirs—at least, little and rarely. I am always exposing myself to the wrath of John Bull, when this coterie come into competition. It is inconceivable what a convert M. de Talleyrand has made of me; I think him now one of the first members, and one of the most charming, of this ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... to say you're only allowed a bit of bread, too." It is human perversity to want a great deal of bread when bread becomes scarce; even war bread, which, by the way, is better than white. But the rest of the luncheon, when it came, proved that John Bull was under no necessity of stinting himself. Save for wheat and sugar; he is not in want. Everywhere in London you are confronted by signs of an incomprehensible prosperity; everywhere, indeed, in Great Britain. There can ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the theory of man's brutal origin; which is the great thing to be gained by giving him a remote antiquity. The Enghis skull is in no way inferior to many good modern Indian skulls; and the man of Mentone stood six feet one in his stocking soles (if he wore stockings), having a good John Bull head between his shoulders, with a facial angle equal to that of Generals Grant or Von Moltke; and in fact being a fine old Gallic gentleman, all of ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... post-office; also for a return of the amount of postage charged upon this dead mail matter. I am pretty confident that this return will startle the people and government with some remarkable disclosures with regard to the amount of mail matter conveyed across the ocean, for which John Bull does not get a farthing, because he asks too much ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... is by comparison more pro-Ally than pro-British. The fact is, the American is on the side of right and justice in this War, and earnestly desires to see the Allied cause prevail; but he has a sub-conscious aversion to seeing slow-witted, self-satisfied John Bull collect yet another scalp. American relations with France, too, have always been of the most cordial nature; while America's very existence as a separate nation to-day is the fruit of a quarrel ...
— Getting Together • Ian Hay
... and Chicago both gone, already! John Bull must have been at work among the savages a long time, to get them into this ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... might say the only distinction between Atheism and Agnosticism. The Agnostic is a timid Atheist, and the Atheist a courageous Agnostic. John Bull is infuriated by the red cloak of Atheism, so the Agnostic dons a brown cloak with a red lining. Now and then a sudden breeze exposes a bit of the fatal red, but the garment is promptly adjusted, and Bull forgets the ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... at London. The Morning Chronicle is out upon me for having done I don't know what in North America and Germany. All fidle-stik. I send you the paper to see how eassy John Bull is gulled. I could send you some important news. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... a rich reward for investigation. Accordingly two gentlemen well known to the railway world, Messrs. Zerah Colburn and Alexander L. Holley, made a trip to England for the purpose of discovering how it was that John Bull could work his railways so much cheaper than Brother Jonathan. The results of their investigations are embodied in a handsome quarto volume, illustrated with numerous drawings, which has been subscribed for by most of the railways and prominent railway-men throughout ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... bloom, which an American taste is apt to deem fitter for a milkmaid than for a lady; the moustached gentlemen with frogged surtouts and a military air; the nursemaids and chubby children, but no chubbier than our own, and scampering on slenderer legs; the sturdy figure of John Bull in all varieties and of all ages, but ever with the stamp of authenticity ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... Banim. Mark me! he is a man, the only one I have met since I left Ireland, almost. We walked over Hyde Park together on St. Patrick's Day, and renewed our home recollections by gathering shamrocks, and placing them in our hats, even under the eye of John Bull." ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... sea; had visited foreign ports innumerable; had weathered more storms than he could count, and had witnessed more strange sights than he could remember. He was tough, and sturdy, and grizzled, and broad, and square, and massive—a first-rate specimen of a John Bull, and according to himself, "always kept his weather-eye open." This remark of his was apt to create confusion in the minds of his hearers; for John meant the expression to be understood figuratively, while, in point of fact, he almost always kept one of his literal ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... pleased to have introduced so early), when it was requisite to administer a corrective dose to the nation, Robespierre was found; a most foul and nauseous dose indeed, and swallowed eagerly by the patient, greatly to the latter's ultimate advantage: thus, when it became necessary to kick John Bull out of America, Mr. Washington stepped forward, and performed that job to satisfaction: thus, when the Earl of Aldborough was unwell, Professor Holloway appeared with his pills, and cured his lordship, as per advertisement, &c. &c.. Numberless instances might be adduced to show that ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... except even John Bull's favourite yew peacocks and dragons, at least when they decorate the garden of a ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... overwhelming passion either for the body of Christian or the soul which she imagined it to contain; but she was always a gracious figure and her voice was gentle. Perhaps Mr. LORAINE owed most to his scenic artists, Messrs. DULAC and JOHN BULL, who gave of their best. There was attraction too in the very names of Arras and Bapaume, as well as in the thought of the part that our Cyrano of to-day has played against a ruder foe than the Spaniard. And was I wrong in tracing a hint of other experiences gained at the front, when Mr. LORAINE ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 21, 1919. • Various
... inspiration of art, superstitious faith, and poesy. The old ethnic instincts of human nature are formidable auxiliaries of the Mother Church. Puseyism would rehallow the saintly wells even of Protestant, practical England, and send John Bull again on a pilgrimage to the shrines of Canterbury and Walsingham. Compare a Yankee, common-school-bred, and an Austrian peasant, if you would learn how the twelfth and nineteenth centuries live together in the current year. The one is self-reliant, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... that alarmed self-consciousness of the modern American come from—that unceasing self-consciousness that makes the American young man spend five sixths of his waking time in asking himself if he is a gentleman? Not from the splendid assurance, the belief in himself, the wholesome satisfaction of old John Bull. It's no use for the modern American to say he is of English descent at all!" continued this boisterous controversialist, who was still glaring at the hapless mortal at the door, as if every windy sentence was being hurled ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... situation of his country as he and his countrymen saw it. The Russian Bear, coming down from the north, his feet planted in Manchuria and northern Korea, sees the British Bulldog seated in southern China, while "The Sun Elf'' ( Japan), sitting upon its Island Kingdom, proclaims that "John Bull and I will watch the Bear.'' The German Sausage around Kiau-chou makes no sign of life, but the French Frog, jumping about in Tonquin and Annam and branded "Fashoda and Colonial Expansion,'' tries to stretch a friendly hand to the Bear over ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... claims and arguments of their own party are alike preposterous—underneath this vein of unbelief is a vein of extraordinary credulity. Poverty is to be at once and for ever abolished. "The millions an' millions that John Bull dhrags out iv us, to kape up his grandeur, an' to pay soldiers to grind us down, we'll put into our own pockets, av you plaze," was the answer vouchsafed to an inquiry as to what advantages were expected from the passing of the Home Rule Bill. The ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... very acutely; seems to have taken things comfortably and well since the day of his birth; has not allowed his creed to spoil his face—a trick which some professors of religion are guilty of; and is, on the whole, a genuine specimen of the true John Bull type. Father Taylor's first mission was at Lancaster, under the late Dean Brown; afterwards he came to St. Augustine's, Preston, where he remained four and a half years; then he was appointed Catholic chaplain at the ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... in Scripture history, in an age when few could read. The instruction was not, however, always taken to heart, as profane swearing was so common that an Englishman was called on the Continent by his favorite oath, which the French regarded as a sort of national name before that of "John Bull" came into use. ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... train for London, where we arrived at midnight. Two weeks in that vast Babel,—then, ho! for Paris! Twelve hours by rail and steamer carried us out of John Bull's dominions into the brilliant metropolis of his French neighbor. Joseph accompanied us, and wrote letters home, filled with gossip which I knew, or hoped, would make Margaret writhe. I had not found it so easy to forget her as I had supposed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... Shakespeare or George R. Sims. Then you have to think again. This frequently happens to me upstairs; and downstairs poor Johnny will find to his horror one day that his great work has already been given to the world by another—a certain Dr. John Bull. ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... parasol, and a rosy Dutch girl in cap and kerchief. Then a Turk sitting cross-legged upon his cushion smoked his long pipe and beamed affably on the audience, an Esquimaux gentleman came from his igloo in the north to pose for a moment, and a boyish Uncle Sam and John Bull ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... Jonathan amuses himself whenever he meets them, by imposing upon their credulity the most absurd stories which he can invent, which they swallow whole, go home with their eyes sticking out of their heads with wonder, and print all they have heard for the benefit of John Bull's calves. ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... for them: his unhealthy London house cost him the lives of three of his children. To make up for his shortened means he became editor of the London Chronicle and a contributor to various other periodicals, including the notorious weekly John Bull, sometime edited by Theodore Hook. In 1824 he became a priest in the Chapel Royal at St. James's Palace, and soon after gained a couple of excellent livings in Essex, which put him ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... cottager, cottier[obs3], cotter; compatriot; backsettler[obs3], boarder; hotel keeper, innkeeper; habitant; paying guest; planter. native, indigene, aborigines, autochthones[obs3]; Englishman, John Bull; newcomer &c. (stranger) 57. aboriginal, American[obs3], Caledonian, Cambrian, Canadian, Canuck*, downeaster [U.S.], Scot, Scotchman, Hibernian, Irishman, Welshman, Uncle Sam, Yankee, Brother Jonathan. garrison, crew; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... rank of the lady doggess who had been the cause of my severe punishment, but I eagerly inquired of a kind mongrel, who stopped to help me collect my scattered goods, if he knew anything about her. He said, she was called Lady Bull; that her husband. Sir John Bull, had made a large fortune somehow, and that they lived in a splendid house, had about thirty puppies, little and big, had plenty of servants, and spent a great deal of money. He could hardly imagine, he said, that it was the odour of the "fire-flies" ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... remains a fine question whether his extravagant idealisation and justification of Henry V.—which, though it gives so little pause to some of our English critics, entitled M. Guizot to call him a mere John Bull in his ideas of international politics—it remains disputable whether this was exactly an expression of his own thought. It is notable that he never again strikes the note of blatant patriotism. And the poets of that time, further, seem to have had their tongues very much ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson |
