An honest Englishman of good plain sense and meaning? Or a robust true-born Briton ?: English constructions of Englishness, Britishness, and Scottishness, 1690-1740

This essay researches English constructions of British, English, and Scottish identity between 1690 and 1740. It specifically moves past the traditional focus on upper class and political perceptions of identity and focuses more on the merchant and artisan classes, to develop a less elite idea of what it meant (to the English) to be British. English and Scottish at this time. Using periodical literature (essay-periodicals, and early magazines), it analyzes depictions and representation of the inhabitants of the British isles to see how authors writing with the merchant/artisan in mind used art, science, culture, politics, and the idea of the Other to explain who they were