e second, 'John Bull in His Senses'; the
third, 'John Bull Still in His Senses'; and the fourth, 'Lewis Baboon
Turned Honest, and John Bull Politician.' Published in 1712, these were
at once attributed to Swift. But Pope says, "Dr. Arbuthnot was the sole
writer of 'John Bull'"; and Swift gives us still more conclusive
evidence by writing, "I hope you read 'John Bull.' It was a Scotch
gentleman, a friend of mine, that writ it; but they put it on to me." In
his humorous preface Dr. Arbuthnot says:--

"When I was first called to the office of historiographer to
John Bull, he expressed himself to this purpose:--'Sir
Humphrey Polesworth, I know you are a plain dealer; it is for
that reason I have chosen you for this important trust; speak
the truth, and spare not.' That I might fulfill those, his
honorable intentions, I obtained leave to repair to and
attend him in his most secret retirements; and I put the
journals of all transactions into a strong box to be opened
at a fitting occasion, after the manner of the
historiographers of some Eastern monarchs.... And now, that
posterity may not be ignorant in what age so excellent a
history was written (which would otherwise, no doubt, be the
subject of its inquiries), I think it proper to inform the
learned of future times that it was compiled when Louis XIV.
was King of France, and Philip, his grandson, of Spain; when
England and Holland, in conjunction with the Emperor and the
allies, entered into a war against these two princes, which
lasted ten years, under the management of the Duke of
Marlborough, and was put to a conclusion by the treaty of
Utrecht under the ministry of the Earl of Oxford, in the year
1713."

The characters disguised are: "John Bull," the English; "Nicholas Frog,"
the Dutch; "Lewis Baboon," the French king; "Lord Strutt," the late King
of Spain; "Philip Baboon," the Duke of Anjou; "Esquire South," the King
of Spain; "Humphrey Hocus," the Duke of Marlborough; and "Sir Roger
Bold," the Earl of Oxford. The lawsuit was the War of the Spanish
Succession; John Bull's first wife was the late ministry; and his
second wife the Tory ministry. To explain the allegory further, John
Bull's mother was the Church of England; his sister Peg, the Scotch
nation; and her lover Jack, Presbyterianism.

That so witty a work, so strong in typical freehand character drawin