Chapter Bryce's Day to Bull of B by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Bulis, mother of Egypius of Thessaly. Egypius entertained a criminal love for Timandra, the mother of Neophron, and Neophron was guilty of a similar passion for Bulis. Jupiter changed Egypius and Neophron into vultures, Bulis into a duck, and Timandra into a sparrow-hawk.—Classic Mythology.

Bull (A), a species of inadvertent wit, arising either from a blunder of facts or analogies, or from an irreconcilable connection of the close of a sentence with its commencement. The well-known quotation of sir Boyle Roche, M.P., will serve for an example: “Mr. Speaker, how could I have been in two places at the same time, unless I were a bird?” (See Roche.)

(Maria Edgeworth, in 1802, wrote an essay on Irish Bulls.)

Bull (John), the English nation personified, and hence any typical Englishman.

Bull in the main was an honest, plain-dealing fellow, choleric, bold, and of a very inconstant temper. He dreaded not old Lewis [Louis XIV.], either at backsword, single falchion, or cudgel-play; but then he was very apt to quarrel with his best friends, especially if they pretended to govern him. If you flattered him, you might lead him as a child. John’s temper depended very much upon the air; his spirits rose and fell with the weather-glass. He was quick, and understood business well; but no man alive was more careless in looking into his accompts, nor more cheated by partners, apprentices, and servants.…No man kept a better house, nor spent his money more generously.—Chap. 5.

(The subject of Dr. Arbuthnot’s History of John Bull is the “Spanish Succession” in the reigns of Louis XIV. and queen Anne.)

Mrs. Bull, queen Anne, “very apt to be choleric.” On hearing that Philip Baboon (Philippe duc d’Anjou) was to succeed to lord Strutt’s estates (i.e. the Spanish throne), she said to John Bull—

“You sot, you loiter about ale-houses and taverns, spend your time at billiards, ninepins, or puppet-shows, never minding me nor my numerous family. Don’t you hear how lord Strutt [the king of Spain] has bespoke his liveries at Lewis Baboon’s shop [France]?…Fie upon it! Up, man!…I’ll sell my shift before I’ll be so used.”—Chap. 4.

John Bull’s Mother, the Church of England.

John had a mother, whom he loved and honoured extremely; a discreet, grave, sober, good-conditioned, cleanly old gentlewoman as ever lived. She was none of your cross-grained, termagant, scolding jades… always censuring your conduct…on the contrary, she was of a meek spirit…and put the best construction upon the words and actions of her neighbours. …She neither wore a ruff, forehead cloth, nor high-crowned hat…. She scorned to patch and paint, yet she loved cleanliness…. She was no less genteel in her behaviour… in the due mean between one of your affected curtsying pieces of formality, and your ill-mannered creatures which have no regard to the common rules of civility.—Part ii. I.

John Bull’s Sister Peg, the Scotch, in love with Jack (Calvin).

John had a sister, a poor girl that had been reared … on oatmeal and water … and lodged in a garret exposed to the north wind…. However, this usage …gave her a hardy constitution…. Peg had, indeed, some odd humours and comical antipathies…, she would faint at the sound of an organ, and yet dance and frisk at the noise of a bagpipe.—Dr. Arbuthnot: History of John Bull, ii. 2 (1712).

George Colman the younger produced a comedy called John Bull, in 1805.