Why was an English king described as having the heart of a lion, any more
than of a tiger? Why do your patriotic cartoons threaten the world
with the wrath of the British Lion; it is really as strange as if they
warned it against stimulating the rage of the British rhinoceros.
Why did not the French and English princes find in the wild boars,
that were the objects of their hunting, the subjects of their heraldry?
If the Normans were really the Northmen, the sea-wolves of Scandinavian
piracy, why did they not display three wolves on their shields?
Why has not John Bull been content with the English bull,
or the English bull-dog?
The answer might be put somewhat defiantly by saying that the very name
of John Bull is foreign. The surname comes through France from Rome;
and the Christian name comes through Rome from Palestine. If there
had really been any justification for the Teutonic generalisation,
we should expect the surname to be "ox" and not "bull"; and we should
expect the hero standing as godfather to be Odin or Siegfried, and not
the prophet who lived on locusts in the wilderness of Palestine or the
mystic who mused with his burning eyes on the blue seas around Patmos.
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