topic a playful account of another chief political event of the
time--the negotiation leading to the Act of Union between England
and Scotland, which received the Royal Assent on the 6th of March,
17O7; John Bull then consented to receive his "Sister Peg" into his
house. The Church, of course, is John Bull's mother; his first wife
is a Whig Parliament, his second wife a Tory Parliament, which first
met in November, 171O.

This "History of John Bull" began with the first of its four parts
entitled "Law is a Bottomless Pit, exemplified in the case of Lord
Strutt, John Bull, Nicholas Frog, and Lewis Baboon, who spent all
they had in a Law-suit." For Law put War--the War of the Spanish
Succession; for lawyers, soldiers; for sessions, campaigns; for
verdicts, battles won; for Humphry Hocus the attorney, Marlborough
the general; for law expenses, war expenses; and for aim of the
whole, to aid the Tory policy of peace with France. A second part
followed, entitled "John Bull in his Senses;" the third part was
called "John Bull still in his Senses;" and the fourth part, "Lewis
Baboon turned Honest, and John Bull Politician." The four parts
were afterwards arranged into two, as they are here reprinted, and
published together as "The History of John Bull," with a few notes
by the author which sufficiently explain its drift.

The author was John Arbuthnot, a physician, familiar friend of Pope
and Swift, whom Pope addressed as

"Friend to my life, which did not you prolong,
The world had wanted many an idle song;"

and of whom Swift said, that "he has more wit than we all have, and