Robert, a famous English admiral, born in August 1589, at Bridgewater, in Somersetshire, where he was educated at the grammar-school. In 1615 he was entered at St Alban's Hall, Oxford, and subsequently removed to Wadham College. On the 10th of February 1617, he proceeded B.A. In 1623 he wrote a copy of verses on the death of Camden, and soon after left the university. He was early tinctured with republican principles, and disliking that severity with which Laud, then bishop of Bath and Wells, pressed uniformity in his diocese, he embraced puritanism. His natural bluntness causing his principles to be well known, the puritan party returned him member for Bridgewater in 1640. He served in the parliamentary army with great courage during the civil war; but when the king was brought to trial, he highly disapproved the measure, and declared that "he would as freely venture his life to save the king as ever he did to serve the parliament." After the death of the king, however, he fell in wholly with the republican party, and, next to Cromwell, was the ablest officer of whom the parliament could boast.

In 1648-49, Colonel Blake, in conjunction with two officers of the same rank, Dean and Popham, was appointed to command the fleet; and soon after he blockaded Prince Maurice and Prince Rupert in Kinsale harbour. But the latter getting out, Blake followed them from port to port, and at last attacked them in that of Malaga, where he burned and destroyed their whole fleet excepting two ships—the Refor- in which Prince Rupert himself was, and the Scraf- lowe, commanded by his brother Prince Maurice. In 1652 he was constituted sole admiral, and defeated the Dutch fleet commanded by Van Tromp, Ruyter, and De Witt, in three several engagements, in which the Dutch lost eleven men of war, thirty merchant ships, and, according to their own ac- count, 15,000 men. Soon after, Blake and his colleagues, with a fleet of a hundred sail, stood over to the Dutch coast, and forced the enemy's fleet to fly for shelter into the Texel, where they were blockaded for some time by Monk and Dean, while Blake sailed northward. At last, however, Van Tromp got out, and drew together a fleet of 120 men of war. On the 3rd of June the generals Dean and Monk came to an engagement with the enemy off the North Foreland, with indifferent success; but the next day, Blake coming to their assistance with eighteen ships, gained so complete a victory, that if the Dutch had not saved themselves on Calais sands, their whole fleet would have been taken or destroyed.

In April 1653 Cromwell turned the long parliament out of doors, and shortly afterwards assumed the supreme power. Blake observed to his officers on the occasion, "It is not for us to mind state affairs, but to keep foreigners from fooling us." In November 1654, Cromwell sent him with a strong fleet into the Mediterranean, to obtain satisfaction for cer- tain injuries which had been done to our merchants. In the beginning of December Blake entered the roads of Cadiz, where he was treated with all imaginable respect; the Dutch admiral durst not hoist his flag while he was there; and his name had now become so formidable, that the admiral of a French squadron which had stopped one of his tenders when separated in a storm, as soon as he knew to whom it belonged, sent for the captain on board, and drank Blake's health with great ceremony, under a discharge of five guns, and then dismissed him. Blake, on the 10th of March, appeared before Algiers, and demanded satisfac- tion for the piracies committed on the English, and the re- lease of all English captives. The dey, in his answer, alleged that the ships and captives belonged to private persons, and therefore he could not restore them without offending all his subjects, but that the English admiral might easily re- deem them; and if he thought it proper, they would con- clude a peace with him, and for the future commit no acts of hostility against the English. This answer was accom- panied with a large present of fresh provisions; on receiv- ing which Blake left Algiers, and sailed on the same errand to Tunis. The dey of the latter place, however, not only refused to comply with his request, but denied him the liberty of taking in fresh water. "Here," said he, "are our castles of Goletto and Porto Ferino; do your worst." On hearing this, Blake began, as his custom was when highly excited, to twirl his whiskers; and, after a short consultation with his officers, resolved to bear into the bay of Porto Ferino with his great ships and their seconds. On coming within musket-shot of the castle and the line, he fired on both so warmly that in two hours the castle was rendered defenceless, and the guns on the works along the shore were dismounted, although sixty of them played at once on the English. Observing nine ships in the road, Blake ordered every captain to man his long boat with choice men, to enter the harbour and fire the Tunisians; a service which they effected with the loss of only 25 men killed and 48 wounded, while the admiral covered the operation by playing con- tinually on the castle with his great guns. This daring action spread the terror of his name throughout Africa. From Tunis he sailed to Tripoli; caused the English captives to be set at liberty; and concluded a peace with that govern- ment. He then returned to Tunis, upon which the Tuni- sians begged for peace, which he granted on terms highly advantageous to England. He next sailed to Malta, and obliged the knights to restore the effects taken by their pri- vateers from the English. By these and other great ex- ploits, he raised the glory of the English name to such a pitch, that most of the princes and states in Italy thought fit to pay their compliments to the Protector, by sending solemn embassies to him.

Blake passed the next winter either lying before Cadiz or cruising up and down the straits. He was at his old station, at the mouth of the harbour, when he received information that the Spanish plate fleet had put into the bay of Santa Cruz, in the island of Teneriffe. Upon this he weighed anchor, with twenty-five men of war, on the 13th of April 1657; and on the 20th came to anchor with his ships off the bay of Santa Cruz, where he saw sixteen Spanish ships moored in the form of a half-moon. Near the mouth of the harbour stood a castle furnished with heavy ordnance; be- sides which there were seven forts round the bay, with six, four, and three guns on each, and connected by a line of communication manned with musketeers. To make all safe, the commander of the Spanish fleet caused all the smaller ships to be moored close in shore; while the six large galleons stood farther out; at anchor, with their broadsides towards the sea. Blake having prepared for the fight, a squadron of ships was drawn out to make the first onset, commanded by Captain Stayner in the Speaker frigate; who, on receiving orders, sailed into the bay and fell upon the Spanish fleet, without the least regard to the forts, which kept up a heavy cannonade. As soon as these had entered the bay, Blake followed, and stationed several ships to pour their broad- sides into the castle and forts; and these kept up so heavy and well-directed a fire, that, after some time, the Spaniards found their forts too hot to hold them. In the meanwhile Blake joined Stayner, and bravely fought the Spanish ships, out of which the crews were beaten by two o'clock in the afternoon; when Blake, finding it impossible to carry them away, ordered his men to set them on fire; and this was done so effectually, that they were all reduced to ashes ex- cept two, which sunk downright, nothing remaining above the water but part of the masts. The English having now obtained a complete victory, were reduced to another diffi- culty by the wind, which blew so strong into the bay that they despaired of getting out, and for a time lay under the fire of the castle and of all the forts, which must soon have torn them to pieces. But the wind suddenly shifting, they were enabled to work out of the bay, and left the Spaniards in astonishment at the fortunate temerity of their assailants. This action does honour to Blake; and although fortune favoured him in the opportune shifting of the wind, and his situation was, upon the whole, less trying than that of the gallant men under Lord Nelson, who made an attempt on this place, his conduct throughout appears to have been distinguished for the most adventurous daring, and consum- mate nautical skill. "It was so miraculous," says the Earl of Clarendon, "that all men who knew the place wondered that any sober man, with what courage soever endowed, would ever have undertaken it; and they could hardly per- suade themselves to believe what they had done; whilst the Spaniards comforted themselves with the belief that they were devils, and not men, who had destroyed them in such a manner."

This was the last and greatest action of the gallant Blake. Consuming with dropsy and scurvy, he was hastening home- wards, but just as he came within sight of land he expired. Disinterested, generous, liberal, and ambitious of nothing but true glory, Blake was one of the prominent characters of an age fertile in great men, and remained untainted with those errors and violences which were then so predominant. Lord Clarendon observes, "that he was the first man who brought ships to contemn castles on shore, which had ever been thought very formidable, and were discovered by him to make a noise only, and to fright those who could be rarely hurt by them. He was the first that infused that degree of courage into seamen, by making them see by experience what mighty things they could do if they were resolved; and the first that taught them to fight in fire as well as in water."

**Blake, William**, an engraver of high but wild genius, was born in Ireland, Nov. 18, 1757. He early evinced a decided predilection for drawing, and his father, a brazier, allowed him to follow his natural bias, and devote himself to the fine arts. He was accordingly sent to London, where he served his apprenticeship with Bazire, at that time one of the most noted engravers of the metropolis. He received instructions in drawing from Flaxman and Fuseli; and though much of his time was engrossed in professional pursuits, he found means to compose many odes, sonnets, and ballads, which gained him a temporary reputation in the world of letters. He was subject to extraordinary hallucinations from time to time, during which he believed that he saw and conversed with the heroes of ancient and modern history. These visions he reproduced with pen and pencil. His conceptions have much grandeur, yet too frequently they bear the impress of the morbid condition of his mind, especially in the latter years of his life. His best works are his illustrations of Young's *Night Thoughts*, and of Blair's *Grave*.