JOHN BULL.
An old song, made by an aged old pate,
Of an old worshipful gentleman who had a great estate,
That kept a brave old house at a bountiful rate,
And an old porter to relieve the poor at his gate.
With an old study fill'd full of learned old books,
With an old reverend chaplain, you might know him by his
looks,
With an old buttery-hatch worn quite off the hooks,
And an old kitchen that maintained half-a-dozen old cooks.
Like an old courtier, etc.--Old Song.
THERE is no species of humor in which the English more excel than
that which consists in caricaturing and giving ludicrous
appellations or nicknames. In this way they have whimsically
designated, not merely individuals, but nations, and in their
fondness for pushing a joke they have not spared even themselves.
One would think that in personifying itself a nation would be apt
to picture something grand, heroic, and imposing; but it is
characteristic of the peculiar humor of the English, and of their
love for what is blunt, comic, and familiar, that they have
embodied their national oddities in the figure of a sturdy,
corpulent old fellow with a three-cornered hat, red waistcoat,
leather breeches, and stout oaken cudgel.
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