ABSTRACT
The later seventeenth century was the time when the language o f patriotism became firmly established in the repertoire o f English political rhetoric. B y the early 1700s a number o f patriotic cliches and images had been fully elaborated, many o f them still found in use today; and these images were wheeled out with far more regularity and in a greater variety o f contexts than ever before. Patriotic appeals might be included as part o f the introduction to an author’s presentation o f his ideas on economic reform, or as a common means o f smearing a political opponent.
