BULBUL, an Oriental name for a nightingale. When, in _The Princess_ (by Tennyson), the prince, disguised as a woman, enters with his two friends (similarly disguised) into the college to which no man was admitted, he sings; and the princess, suspecting the fraud, says to him, "Not for thee, O bulbul, any rose of Gulistan shall burst her veil," i.e., "O singer, do not suppose that any woman will be taken in by such a flimsy deceit." The bulbul loved the rose, and Gulistan means the "garden of roses." The prince was the bulbul, the college was Gulistan, and the princess the rose sought.--Tennyson, _The Princess_, iv. BULBUL-HE'ZAR, the talking bird, which was joined in singing by all the song-birds in the neighborhood. (See TALKING BIRD.)--_Arabian Nights_ ("The Two Sisters," the last story). BULIS, mother of Egyp'ius of Thessaly. Egypius entertained a criminal love for Timandra, the mother of Neoph'ron, 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 (_John_), the English nation personified, and hence any typical Englishman. _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. iv. _John Bull's Mother_, the Church of England. _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 humors 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). BULLAMY, porter of the "Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Insurance Company." An imposing personage, whose dignity resided chiefly in the great expanse of his red waistcoat. Respectability and well-to-doedness were expressed in that garment.--C. Dickens, _Martin Chuzzlewit_ (1844).