"John Bull" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... climacteric, a very handsome, powerful, and active man, temperate in his habits, good-humoured, frank and honest in his speech (as even his enemies are forced to confess). He seems to have been (as his portraits prove sufficiently), for good and for evil, a thorough John Bull; a thorough Englishman: but one of ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley
... blunderbuss and thunder All Germany is torn asunder; How num'rous circles near and far Encircl'd in the arms of war; Her Hessian bullies one and all, Pay homage to the spurious Gaul; And John Bull's farm, a goodly station, Makes soup ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... disappointment, seem, in some degree, natural to all men; but in no other part of the world, and under no other circumstances, is this peculiarity of our condition more conspicuously displayed than in the case of Englishmen in India. John Bull, who is always a grumbler even on his own shores, is sure to become a still more inveterate grumbler in other countries, and perhaps the climate of Bengal, producing lassitude and low spirits, and a yearning for their native land, of ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... intellects of the time, Edmund Burke, the orator and statesman, Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the portrait painter, and David Garrick, the great actor, who had been a pupil in Johnson's school, near Lichfield. Johnson was the typical John Bull of the last century. His oddities, virtues, and prejudices were thoroughly English. He hated Frenchmen, Scotchmen, and Americans, and had a cockneyish attachment to London. He was a high Tory, and an orthodox churchman; he loved a lord in the abstract, and yet he asserted a sturdy independence ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... brother Jonathan," meaning his excellency Jonathan Trumbull, the elder governor of the state of Connecticut. This was done, and the difficulty surmounted. "To consult brother Jonathan" then became a set phrase, and "Brother Jonathan" became the "John Bull" of the United States.—J. R. Bartlett, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... just as they despised England. John Bull was an effete old plutocrat whose sons and daughters were given up to sport and amusement. The Kaiser, in his famous Aix-la-Chapelle order, referred scornfully to our 'contemptible little army.' He was right, it was a contemptible little ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... are a little lowered, and they come to look at the truth, coolly. I'll answer for it, the Battle of Bunker's Hill made us"—the captain had spoken in this way, now, for some months—"made us a thousand advocates, where we had one before. This is the nature of John Bull; give him reason to respect you, and he will soon do you justice; but give him reason to feel otherwise, and he becomes a careless, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... the general verdict. There was, too, much mismanagement in the conduct of the war, some of which might easily have been avoided; and there was not a little suffering, as the consequence of that mismanagement. John Bull must have his scape-goat, like the rest of us; and, looking over the field, he discovered that all his leaders were old men, and forthwith, though the oldest of old fellows himself, he laid all his mishaps to the account ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... we get the Berlin dailies promptly. Soon after the Germans are reading the war correspondence from their own front we are reading it, and laughing at jokes in their comic papers and at cartoons which exhibit John Bull as a stricken old ogre and Britannia who Rules the Waves with the corners of her mouth drawn down to the bottom of her chin, as she sees the havoc that von Tirpitz is making with submarines which do not stop ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... delighted you approved of what I said last night,[Footnote: In the House of Lords.] and much obliged to you for letting me know it. I thought Derby's speech excellent, though perhaps a trifle too bellicose in the latter part for John Bull, who always wants a little preparation before he is taken over rough ground. He is under the strict neutrality delusion just now, and has not yet thought of realising his role ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... and the signing of this document by the members of the Continental Congress was a dramatic scene, seldom, if ever, surpassed in the annals of history. As John Hancock placed his great familiar signature upon it, he jestingly remarked, that John Bull could read that without spectacles; and then, becoming more serious, he began to impress upon his comrades the necessity of all hanging together in this matter. "Yes, indeed," interrupted Franklin, "we must all hang together, or assuredly ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... and I sallied forth to alarm watchmen with the 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
... 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 fly the British flag. ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... nation which the artisan of Oldham or Middlesbrough can recognise is the picture of John Bull as a fat, brutal, early nineteenth-century Midland farmer. One of our national symbols alone, the 'Union Jack,' though it is as destitute of beauty as a patchwork quilt, is fairly satisfactory. But all its associations so far are ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... in the same 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. That man, though, ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... tale of love and war, the ingenuity and daring of American prisoners on British soil brought into stirring play with the integrity of John Bull's humble officials. Price . ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... to a butcher named John Bull, for a term of three years, while I was put at the trade of stone-cutting with Sam ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... 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, ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... things may be upset by some social earthquake, look back with regret to the days of quiet solid progress, when everything seemed to have settled down to a quiet, stable equilibrium. Wealth and comfort were growing—surely no bad things; and John Bull—he had just received that name from Arbuthnot—was waxing fat and complacently contemplating his own admirable qualities. It is the period of the composition of 'Rule Britannia' and 'The Roast Beef of Old England,' and of the settled belief that your lusty, cudgel-playing, ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... "Uncle Sam" became a popular personification of the United States during the War of 1812, replacing Brother Jonathan, and was often used in contradistinction to the British "John Bull"} ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... confess I see more beauty in a field of grain waving under the August sun, than in these acres of yellow sand, and the thought of a perpetual summer, with never the soft grey tones of an autumn sky or the crisp frostiness of a winter's morning—well, it doesn't appeal to my John Bull soul!" ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... it was in the time of O'Connell; and how the Tories of to-day are apt to view it from precisely the same plane as those of 1843. It might also be cited as another proof not only of De Quincey's very keen interest in all the leading questions of the time, but as an illustration of the John Bull warmth and heat which he, the dreamer, the recluse, the lover of abstract problems, could bring into such discussions. Here, at all events, his views were definite enough, and stated with a bold precision ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... 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 ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... with Great Britain, the 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, followed by a further elaboration of Canada's ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... the usual legal 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 ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... 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 was ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... 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 pocket. He lampooned England's allies ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... no sport accordingly after trying with Trimmers. Mr. Bainbridge is a good cut of John Bull—plain, sensible, and downright; the maker of his own fortune, and ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... be mentioned that the cruisers of John Bull prowled along the coast during the entire war, with sometimes permission to enter the blockaded ports, conveying information and lending encouragement to the enemy, and rejoicing at every disaster that befell the Union arms, which, together with the tacit connivance of the British ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... the bride pronounced for the boat, which was a big flat-bottomed punt, as reliable in appearance as pictures of John Bull. I fetched her rugs from the car. She was helped into the boat, and then, as my fate remained to be settled, I asked her in a voice soft as silk what were her wishes in ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... rattlesnake hash; squirrel saute; fricasseed opossum; pumpkin pie. That's your sort! Blue coat and brass buttons. White Marseilles waistcoat. France saved by Marseilles waistcoat. Organize earthquake to swallow London. JOHN BULL trembles. Tours trembles. Italy trembles. Leaning tower of Pisa changes base and slopes other way. Tired of France. Change base and slope other way. PUNCHINELLO for the throne of Spain! Down with AOSTA! Down with effete monarchies! ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... poem entitled Medicus Magus, or the Astrologer, a droll story brimming over with quiet humour, folk-lore, philology and archaic lore. Also The Ragbag, which is dedicated to "John Bull, Esq." The style of his poetry was Johnsonian, or after the manner of Erasmus Darwin, a bard whom the present generation has forgotten, but whose Botanic Garden, published in 1825, is full of quaint plant-lore and classical allusions, if it does not reach the highest form of poetic talent. ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... of Queen Anne, to say that a man intended to carry a green bag, was the same as saying that he meant to adopt the law as a profession. In Dr. Arbuthnot's 'History of John Bull,' the prevalence of the phrase is shown by the passage, "I am told, Cousin Diego, you are one of those that have undertaken to manage me, and that you have said you will carry a green bag yourself, rather than we shall make an end of our lawsuit. ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... you would think that he would pluck out his eyes and give them for a gift if need be. Well, a few years ago, Chicago was bitterly scourged with a fire. The need and distress thus caused appealed to the nations of the earth for help. The response was grand and glorious. Even hateful old John Bull did well. But what did Ireland do? Take two of her leading cities as an example; one in the North, the other in the South. Belfast in the North, of the Tribe of Dan; Dublin in the South, of the Phoenicians. Belfast ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... lighter ware than words, plaudities, and the breath of the great beast, which, like the threatenings of two cowards, vanish all into air." This great beast I take to be, "The many headed monster of the pit," mentioned in after times by POPE, and the renowned JOHN BULL, celebrated by me, THEOBALDUS SECUNDUS, in my dedication of last month. Be that however, as it may, I read the treatise through, and was so smitten with the accurate view it exhibited of the theatres of these days, that I immediately determined to transport myself, as well ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... that night. But they were too far off; 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, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... my critics take a higher kind of ground, and say that I want to minimise and melt down the old stern beliefs and principles of morality into a kind of nebulous emotion. They remind me a little of an old country squire of whom I have heard, of the John Bull type, whose younger son, a melancholy and sentimental youth, joined the Church of Rome. His father was determined that this should not separate them, and asked him to come home and talk it over. He told his eldest son that he was going ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... 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 find ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... climate, its fertile 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 forth all the good to be derived from a settlement in the Backwoods ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... "I miss 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 wretched trifles are ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... and a good deal of scout pluck and Yankee resource. The only thing that had stood in the way was the question of honor, and that was now settled on the high authority of the British navy! Who but sturdy old John Bull had come forward when Belgium was being violated? And now a couple of John Bull's jack-tars had told him that it was for Germany to keep him and for him to get ...
— Tom Slade on a Transport • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... of seamanship, of luck and ill luck, and here and there a little politics of the old-fashioned, elementary sort. They boasted themselves and their country not a little, and criticised everybody else, and John Bull especially, very severely often, but almost always very acutely, too. They would play euchre and smoke cigars from nine o'clock till eleven, and would then go to bed and sleep till the breakfast-bell. Altogether, they were fine company, and they did me much good. ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... squire, or, in other words, the squire of the old school, is the eldest born of John Bull; he is the "very moral of him;" as like him as pea to pea. He has a tolerable share of his good qualities; and as for his prejudices—oh, they are his meat and drink, and the very clothes he wears. He is made up of prejudices—he is covered all over with ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... old 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: ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... memory. But I must now go to town—our affairs give us no holidays." And then instantly the room was in a fuss and a flurry. No Englishman could have made a more bustling exit; and, indeed, even in his physical aspect, John Adams was a perfect picture of the traditional John Bull. His natural temperament carried out this likeness: high-mettled as a game- cock during the Revolutionary war, he was, in politics, passionate, dogmatic and unconciliating, and in social life ceremonious and showy ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... vigorous appetite of the English has been worn down by the intemperate use of German dramas, and is so vitiated and enfeebled that it can swallow nothing but hot spiced trash, or water gruel spoon-meat. Are the French wrong in calling John Bull stupide barbare when they see him pouring thousands into the laps of foreign singers—and for what?—why, to sing such ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... Britain in love-bonds and mutual loyalty as to make all the world wonder. The President of the Transvaal months after the war began is reported to have said: "If the moon is inhabited I cannot understand why John Bull has not yet annexed it"; but with respect to his own beloved Republic he reckoned it was far safer than the moon, for he added: "So surely as there is a God of righteousness, so surely ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... the people of Paris, for which they are known the world over, is their politeness. I noticed this in all circles and in all places. In England John Bull stares at your dress if it differs from his own, and hunts you to the wall. Or if anything in your speech or manners pleases him, he laughs in your face. But in Paris, the Frenchman never is guilty of ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... 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 many ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... 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, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... in the tale and the princess whom he wedded; he felt as if that would be the case even if he should love an Englishwoman; to such a distance, into such an attitude of self-defence, does English self-complacency and belief in England's superiority throw the stranger. In fact, in a good-natured way, John Bull is always doubling his fist in a stranger's face, and though it be good-natured, it does not always produce the ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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 ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... "For 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
... knowledge they impart, they fall back upon the plea of its supposed occult value as intellectual discipline. They say in effect:—"This sawdust we offer you contains no food, we know: but then see how it strengthens the jaws to chew it!" Besides, look at our results! The typical John Bull! pig-headed, ignorant, brutal. Are we really such immense successes ourselves that we must needs perpetuate the mould that ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... with astonishment; and yet his wonder was not unmixed with admiration. I saw him try to suppress that feeling, but it would find vent, John Bull like, and ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... blows that were struck by hand. It was an awful minute to us in the brig. The cries of the hurt reached us in the stillness of that gloomy morning, and oaths mingled with the clamour. Though taken by surprise, John Bull fought well; though we could perceive that he was overpowered, however, just as the distance, and the haze that was beginning to gather thick around the land, shut in the two vessels from ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... hotel at Cairo is to an Englishman the centre of Egypt, and there our two friends stopped. And certainly our countrymen have made this spot more English than England itself. If ever John Bull reigned triumphant anywhere; if he ever shows his nature plainly marked by rough plenty, coarseness, and good intention, he does so at Shepheard's hotel. If there be anywhere a genuine, old-fashioned John Bull landlord now living, the landlord of the hotel at Cairo is the ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... John Bull looks down from the sublime of ten thousand a year on French kickshaws, as he calls them:—"Give me my meat cooked so I may know what it is!" An ox roasted whole is dear to John's soul, and his kitchen-arrangements ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... years; in other words, its supply is unequal to the demand. The heavy Britishers have awakened to the fact, since 1851, that, of all condiments and delicacies, cranberry-sauce and cranberry-pie are best in their way; and John Bull takes many a barrel clean out of our market now. It so happened that in the Pines of New Jersey cranberries superior to those of Cape Cod have grown unheeded for centuries,—grew red and purple and white and pink when Columbus was unthought of, as well as when Washington passed through the Pines,—and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... domestic manners. The English in the East and West Indies, in New South Wales, and in Canada, seldom lose a relish for the habits and enjoyments they have been bred up in, whether they migrate to the extremes of heat or of cold. John Bull is an Englishman in heart, and will remain so under whatever sun his lot of life may be ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... Wordsworth on the next day Lamb told the story:—"Mr. H—— came out last night and failed. I had many fears; the subject was not substantial enough. John Bull must have solider fare than a Letter. We are pretty stout about it, have had plenty of condoling friends, but after all, we had rather it should have succeeded. You will see the Prologue in most ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... observed in advance on the countenances of many of his listeners. Years ago Mr. 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 criticisms ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... of a Briton!" laughed the other. "I fancy, too, it'll be a long time before John Bull ceases to stamp around, master of his own shores, or Britannia no longer rules the deep. But how is your friend, Sir Charles Wray? I had the pleasure of meeting him the other morning in the ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... same reason that the gigantic kindness of Shaw has failed. The roots are different; it is like tying the tops of two trees together. Briefly, the philosophy of John Bull's Other Island is quite effective and satisfactory except for this incurable fault: the fact that John Bull's other island ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... 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 ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... generous response from the crowd. Soult was cheered lustily along the whole route, and in the Abbey itself, so that he returned to France not only full of personal gratification at the welcome he had received, but strongly convinced of the goodwill of John Bull to Frenchmen in general. How the balls of destiny roll! Soult feted in London, Ney dead by a traitor's death, filling his nameless grave in Pere la Chaise. The procession, beginning with trumpeters and Life Guards, wound its way in relays of foreign ambassadors, members of the royal family ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... though not least, under our present consideration, comes the renowned Sir William, a plain bluff John Bull; he is said to be the son of a presbyterian citizen, and was rigidly educated in his father's religion. He obtained the alderman's gown, and represented the City in the year 1790: he is a good natured, and, I believe, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... little 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 children ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... room we most lived in, the room with the magic window, we had crowded a few special favorites of the English school, for we had so much foreign blood in us that we were more British than John Bull himself—plus royalistes ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... sneering pity for the boy who consents to fag. You have read Dr. Birch and His Young Friends, and you would like to break the head of Master Hewlett, who shies his shoe at the poor shivering, craven Nightingale, and you justly remark that close observation of John Bull seems to warrant the conclusion that the nature of his bovine ancestor is still far from eliminated from his descendant. And what is the secret of your feeling? Simply that you hate bullying. Why, then, young gentlemen, ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... great calm eye, that was always looking folk full in the face, mildly; his countenance comely and manly, but no more; too square for Apollo; but sufficed for John Bull. His figure it was that charmed the curious observer of male beauty. He was five feet ten; had square shoulders, a deep chest, masculine flank, small foot, high instep. To crown all this, a head, overflowed by ripples of dark brown hair, sat with heroic grace upon his solid white throat, ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... conversation was the common bluster and boisterousness of their 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... a jolly 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, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... White Horse Gully obtained its name from a white horse whose hoofs, whilst the animal in a rage was plunging here and there, flung up the surface ground and disclosed the treasures beneath. In this gully was found the famous "John Bull Nugget," lately exhibited in London. The party to whom it belonged consisted of three poor sailors; the one who actually discovered it had only been a fortnight at the diggings. The nugget weighed forty-five pounds, and was only a few inches beneath the surface. ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... had him there. It afforded me keen enjoyment. Besides being a John Bull Englishman, I am a cripple and therefore ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... it must be 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
... be predicated upon any of Mr. Buckle's averages. Given the census, you may, perhaps, say so many murders, so many suicides, so many misdirected letters (and men of letters), but not so many geniuses. In this one thing old Mother Nature will be whimsical and womanish. This is a gift that John Bull, or Johnny Crapaud, or Brother Jonathan does not find in his stocking every Christmas. Crude imagination is common enough,—every hypochondriac has a more than Shakspearian allowance of it; fancy is cheap, or nobody would dream; eloquence sits ten deep on every platform. But genius in Art is that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... 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, ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Provencal, "I will teach him something better. Just wait, John Bull, you will soon know me; I'll get the best of you, and then ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... that, notwithstanding its beauty, it was regarded as a sort of "Dead Sea fruit." The Italians first dared to use it freely; the French followed; and after eying it askance as a novelty for unknown years, John Bull ventured to taste, and having survived, began to eat with increasing gusto. To our grandmothers in this land the ruby fruit was given as "love-apples," which, adorning quaint old bureaus, were devoured by dreamy eyes long before canning factories were within the ken of even a Yankee's vision. Now, ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... 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 getting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... to many as extremely violent, yet it is no stronger than that of Tolstoi, while Bernard Shaw used almost identical expressions in his Preface to "John Bull's Other Island," without anybody ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... of Ministers, who in their turn perforce adopt measures alien to the traditions of Westminster. A system founded on compromise cannot suddenly take on the ways of a military State; and efforts in this direction generally produce more friction than activity. At such times John Bull, flurried and angry, short-sighted but opinionated, bewildered but dogged as ever, is a sight to move the gods to laughter and his ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... that hotch-potch—the overture; or, a thrill when the muffin-bell 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 mask his papa. ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... "What's that John Bull a-saying?" asked a brawny fellow, placing himself in front of the irate vestryman. "Look here, old fellow," he continued, "if you want to save a whole bone in your body, you had better slope, and never dare to talk again about hauling ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... good-natured, easy man, and a friend 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 ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... Sleepinbuff found the John Bull's idea so amusingly eccentric, that, for the first time since a very long period, he burst into a peal of hearty laughter. Morok, pale with rage, rushed towards him with so menacing an air, that Goliath was obliged ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... 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 violence, and at the same time ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... famous Lodging-House, John Bull he stood A1; On him she always kept an eye, To see ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... Nation; Self 'stounded at his moderation. Bridgwater, Gilbert, Brindley, three Great Engineers this Centurie, Canals Useful canals in England made, The flowing arteries of trade. Quebec General Wolfe seventeen-five-nine 1759 Captures Quebec—a victory fine, And Canada's the splendid prize For old 'John Bull' ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... familiar, for sixtyfive guineas and Farnaby and son with their dux and comes conceits and Byrd (William) who played the virginals, he said, in the Queen's chapel or anywhere else he found them and one Tomkins who made toys or airs and John Bull. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... stakes to play for. But according to old Twemlow's description, she must be the daughter of that old bear Darling, with whom I shall have to pick a bone some day. Ha! How amusing is that battery to me! How little John Bull knows the nature of French troops! To-morrow we are to have a grand practice-day; and I hope they won't shoot me in my new lodgings. Nothing is impossible to such an idiot as Stubbard. What a set of imbeciles I have found to do with! They have scarcely wit enough to amuse ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... 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
... over. I think 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 ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... complications. Despite the much-bewritten "brotherhood of the two great English-speaking races of the world," the old leaven of cousinly ill-feeling, the jealousy which embitters the Pole against his Russian congener, is still rampant. Uncle Sam actively dislikes John Bull and dispraises England. An Anglo-American who has lived years amongst us and in private intimacy must, when he returns home, speak disparagingly of the old country unless he can afford the expensive luxury of telling unpopular truths and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... Moors's two shop-boys - Walters and A. M. the quadroon - and the guests of the evening, Shirley Baker, the defamed and much-accused man of Tonga, and his son, with the artificial joint to his arm - where the assassins shot him in shooting at his father. Baker's appearance is not unlike John Bull on a cartoon; he is highly interesting to speak to, as I had expected; I found he and I had many common interests, and were engaged in puzzling over many of the same difficulties. After dinner it was quite pretty to see our Christmas party, it was so easily pleased and prettily behaved. In ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mansion is Mr. Carl Koenig, a dear old hippopotamus who is five-feet-nothing in his boots, and has piercing black eyes and an electroplated mustache. He is a sort of an English-German-Dutch-Polish musician. When he talks of himself as an organist he is always a little John Bull, being F. R. C. O. and lots of things besides; when he speaks of 'Vaterland' he is a German; when he mentions the sea he is a Dutchman; and when he is in good spirits (or they are in him) he sings 'Poland is not lost forever!' ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... to yourself, sir, and do not neglect your own size: which seems to me a good deal on the increase. Lucy, has he not rather the air of an incipient John Bull? He used to be slender as an eel, and now I fancy in him a sort of heavy dragoon bent—a beef-eater tendency. Graham, take notice! If you grow fat I ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... their throwing the helve after the hatchet, and giving up the malt-duty because they had lost the other, was droll enough. After all, our fat friend[35] must learn to live within compass, and fire off no more crackers in the Park, for John Bull is getting dreadfully sore on all ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Adrian levelled eyes black with reproach upon him. Then turning to the ladies: "That shows how he misunderstands me. Just because I had a witty mother,—just because I 'm not a stolid, phlegmatic ox of a John Bull,—just because I 'm sensitive and impressionable,—he calls me flighty. But you know better, don't you? You, with all your fine feminine instincts and perceptions, you know that I 'm really as steady and as serious as the pyramids of Egypt. Even my very jokes have a moral purpose—and what I ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... 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 live without his golden calves of 'superiors' ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... story is conceived and executed in an admirable manner: a work which, when once taken up, it is difficult to put down.' —JOHN BULL. ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare
... to the table of the Presidents, you will see that Lincoln's origin is set down as "English." But with the noted English love of fair play is coupled the art of not knowing when a man is beaten. This descendant of John Bull differs from his ancestors on ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... 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 physician, was in effect the chaplain ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... 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
... very considerable number of Weare pamphlets in my possession, one of them being a record of the trial by Pierce Egan, the author of Life in London and Boxiana. Walter Scott writes in his diary of being absorbed in an account of the trial, while he deprecates John Bull's maudlin sentiment over 'the pitiless assassin.' That was in 1826, but in 1828 Scott went out of his way when travelling from London to Edinburgh, to visit Gill's Hill, and describes the scene of the tragedy very vividly. Lockhart's ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... French chasse-marees, Germans, Russians and Greeks were there; and each vessel was characterised by some nautical peculiarity. Of course the greater number were our own English vessels, as plainly to be pronounced British as ever was John Bull in the midst ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... societies was the same—to summon a national 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, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... lie, and would give the thief who puts his hands into his pocket the cat-o'-nine-tails most unmercifully. The persecutions of the Gipsies in this country from time to time has been brought about, to a great extent, by themselves. John Bull dislikes keeping the idle, bastard children of other nations. He readily protects all those who tread upon English soil, but in return for this kindness he expects them, like bees, to be all workers. Drones, ragamuffins, and rodneys cannot ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... 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" which had occasioned me to be knocked down ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... a deposit separate from that of the sister-kingdom a distinct receptacle. Close at hand stand the antipodes in the pavilion of Chili, that opens its graceful portal to bales sprinkled mayhap with the ashes of Aconcagua. There "crashes a sturdy box of stout John Bull;" and Russia, Tunis and Canada roll into close neighborhood with him and each other. A queer and not, let us hope, altogether transitory show of international comity is this. Many a high-sounding, much-heralded and more-debating Peace Congress has been held with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... the cardinal—we 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 ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... about it; it was a real, good, earnest John Bull knock-down thump; it put me in mind of Portsmouth ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... passage in The Corsair, as Byron seemed to fear, was included by "some scribblers"—i.e. the "lumbering Goth" (see John Bull's Letter), A. A. Watts, in the Literary Gazette, February and March, 1821—among his supposed plagiarisms. Sotheby informed Moore that his lines had been written, though not published, before the appearance of the Corsair. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... of windy down And bleak one-sided wood, With not a single house. Our town itself was small, With just the common shops, And throve in its small way. Our neighboring gentry reared The good old-fashioned crops, And made old-fashioned boasts Of what John Bull would do If Frenchman Frog appeared, And drank old-fashioned toasts, And made old-fashioned bows To my ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... 2d At Oblong John Bull and his Wife Wing Kelley and his Wife Oliver Tyron and his Wife John Wing and his Wife John Hoag ye 2d and Wife Benjam Hoag and his Wife Abner Hoag and Wife Philip Allen and Wife Moses Hoag and Wife George Soule and Wife Wm. Russell and Wife David ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... 182).] The whole establishment is starved; decay appears in every office, public and private; and ruin is writ large upon the whole station. An Englishman who loves his country must blush when he walks through Bathurst. Even John Bull would be justified in wishing that he had been born ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... summer of the Centennial year I followed the races; gambling on horses, running faro bank, red and black, old monte, and anything else that came up. I had a partner at the beginning by the name of John Bull, of Chicago, and he was a good, clever boy. He dealt faro, and I the red and black. We separated at Jackson, Mich., he going to Chicago and I to Cleveland, where I witnessed the great race between "Goldsmith Maid" and the horse "Smuggler," on which I lost some ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol
... such as few writers are fortunate enough to be admitted to. He approves a remark of George II. and patronizingly exclaims, "Sensible King!" He has occasion to mention John Adams, and salutes him thus: "Glorious, delightful, honest John Adams! An American John Bull! The Comic Uncle of this exciting drama!" He then calls him "a high-mettled game-cock," and says "he made a splendid ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... had to be sent away disconsolate, sometimes after having come long distances to secure the long-wished-for volume. 'But first come, first served, is my motto, and if six orders come for the same book, it goes to the man whose letter or card I first receive.' A sturdy John Bull sort of man this, with a great knowledge of books, who has had to fight a long uphill battle, and is perhaps one of the best-known ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... this time great talk of an invasion by the French. The ministers, having granted large subsidies, and having imposed new taxes, found it necessary to frighten John Bull with the idea of being invaded. Great alarm was therefore excited throughout the country; volunteer corps and troops of yeomanry were raising all over the island. Provisions had by this time increased in price, every article of common consumption was nearly doubled, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... there in that daft fashion, or the Canucks will imagine you are one of the irresponsibles who lately arrived in New York from Europe, and that the cute Yankees have quietly shipped you over to John Bull's domains." ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... lawyer. But John's a lawyer himself. No, attorneys, I suppose, are the men. Gad! they were sharp enough when they had to hunt me. What's that great bill on the wall about? 'Down with the Lords!' Pooh, pooh! Master John Bull, you love lords a great deal too much for that. A prettyish girl! English women are very good-looking, certainly. That Lucretia, what shall I do, if —— Ah, time enough to think of her when I have got over ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... very 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 of ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... was quite humorous, but I realized that I had hardly been wise, as without doubt the English will hear of this, and these trawlers of theirs will turn up, and I'm certainly not going to try any heroics with John Bull, who is as tough a fighter ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... heigh for humbug France or Spain, Who brings back our old steps again, Which John Bull will applaud amain, Just as he ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... story's good, STANHOPE, as far as it runs, For JOHN BULL, at last, looks like getting his guns. But though you talk big on the strength of the four With which you've just managed to arm Singapore, We would like you to state precisely how long 'Twill take you to get the next batch to Hong Kong! For you talk in a not very confident way Of those ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, March 29, 1890 • Various
... visited foreign parts 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 eyes open and ...
— The World of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... with a suggestive snap under the pope's nose, and Young Rome calculates its future with slate and pencil. Gaul, fresh from one year's term in the severest of all schools, adversity, joins the procession, close by John Bull, who, more suo, pauses first to decide whether the youthful mind shall take its pap with the spoon of orthodoxy or heterodoxy, or neither. With him the question between Church schools and national schools is complicated by one which is common ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... once again to their conservative instincts, will look with a certain regard upon a nation which can show those elements of solidity and "respectability," a tremendous past war, and a heavy national debt, with augmented authority in the central government. John Bull's ill-humor against the "Yankees" has been in vigorous exercise these four years, and has assumed fair latitude for growling itself out: it has been palpably wrong in some of its inferences; for the bubble of Democracy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... man in the army because he had presided over a visitors' chateau and entertained Royalties, Members of Parliament, Mrs. Humphry Ward, miners, Japanese, Russian revolutionaries, Portuguese ministers, Harry Lauder, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, clergymen, Montenegrins, and the Editor of John Bull, at the government's expense—and I am bound to say he deserved them all, being a man of infinite tact, many languages, and a devastating sense of humor. There was always a Charlie Chaplin film between moving pictures of the battles of the Somme. ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... Hotel, where we probably fared just as badly at much more expense, and where there was a particularly gruff and crabbed old waiter, who, I suppose, thought himself free to display his surliness because we arrived at the hotel on foot. For my part, I love to see John Bull show himself. I must go again and again and again to Chester, for I suppose there is not a more ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... England!" he exclaimed, as soon as he got on board. "John Bull don't beat Brother Jonathan yet. Let them talk of their lords and their ladies; there is not a gentleman in Boston that is not quite as noble-looking as the one that I saw, and a great deal more knowing, I can tell you. We saw a splendid carriage and four, with a troop of soldiers in red ...
— Hurrah for New England! - The Virginia Boy's Vacation • Louisa C. Tuthill
... such typical characters as John Bull and Brother Jonathan as representing actual Englishmen or Americans, we put ourselves in the way of contradiction. They are not good likenesses. An English writer says: "As the English, a particularly quick-witted race, tinged with the colors of romance, have long cherished ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... these promptings to reflection, ignorance of his neighbours is the character of the typical John Bull. His is a domineering nature, steady in fight, imperious to command, but neither curious nor quick about the life of others. In French colonies, and still more in the Dutch, I have read that there is an immediate and lively contact between the dominant and the dominated race, that a certain sympathy ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 1860. I remember feeling somewhat nervous lest he should take me for a foreigner on account of my name, and rather unnecessarily went out of my way to assure him that I was rather more English than John Bull himself. It didn't matter in the least; I have no doubt he saw through it all: he was kindness and courtesy itself; and I experienced to the full that emotion so delightful to a young hero-worshipper in meeting face to face a world-wide celebrity whom he has long worshipped at a distance. ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... in Boston, in January, 1874, it was neither to "make my fortune" nor to hunt buffaloes or bears in the neighborhood of that classic city. Nevertheless, just to show my readers that there is a measure of truth in the prevalent impressions here of John Bull's general ignorance and apathy as to what is going on in America, I willingly admit that not till I had been a few days resident in Cambridge did the unpalatable fact fully dawn upon me that the country was undergoing the ordeal of "hard times"—a phrase, by the way, which I have had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... 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 ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... 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 cannot see that she is doing his grinding for him; he ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... earnest man. But Ipsden was a match for her this time. "I think I do," said he; "a gentleman who wants to make John Bull little again into John Calf; but it ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... expense, and the crust of which is already fit for eating. Let us 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
... course of the morning, after a tremendous row with the colonel of the guard-house, they were set at liberty. The consul is exasperated, but they will get no redress, so long as the present system of English diplomacy exists. Be it in Pera or in Madrid, Petersburg or Naples, poor John Bull must always be kicked and cuffed, ill used, and treated contrary to the law of the land in which he happens to be sojourning. Is it to be supposed that any minister would give himself the trouble to mix himself up in such ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... eyebrows and bright-colored 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 shook hands fraternally. ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... 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 delicate spirits do her a secret homage, ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... take the whole fight to your own proper self, and do battle like a man; and here I stand, ready at all arms to prove my position,—that we drink better, sing better, court better, fight better, and make better punch than every John Bull, from ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... highly improbable," was the answer. "And yet, when we know John Bull's variety of tastes, and heroic contempt of money in indulging them, such things may be. I lately found one of my country constituents the inhabitant of a very pretty villa—which he had built, too, for himself—in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... hands upon the knife. John Bull used to laugh at Brother Jonathan for whittling, and Mr. Punch always drew the Yankee with a blade in his fingers; but they found out long ago in Great Britain that whittling in this land led to something, a Boston notion, a wooden clock, a yacht America, a labor-saving machine, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various
... beard was reddish, whereas Mr. Arbuton's mustache was flaxen; and his dress was not worn with that scrupulosity with which the Bostonian bore his clothes; there was a touch of slovenliness in him that scarcely consorted with the alert, ex-military air of some of his movements. "Good-looking young John Bull," he thought concerning Mr. Arbuton, and then thought no more about him, being no more self-judged before the supposed Englishman than he would have been before so much Frenchman or Spaniard. Mr. Arbuton, on the other hand, if he had ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells |
