of Robert Blake or George Washington, as to royalty—had adopted the opinions of those against whom Robert Blake and George Washington fought; for he used to say it was unlucky for him that Admiral Blake had served under the Commonwealth since, if he had served under a King he, as his representative, would have inherited a peerage, a peerage which the great "admiral and general at sea" would have declined.
To minds weary of the constantly recurring spectacle of savage party spirit, rising at times into fury, at other times wearing that degraded form of malignity which has received in England the name of spite—which has been described as in some natures surviving all the other faculties, so as to give rise to the words—"his power gone—his spite immortal—a dead nettle"—there is a singular pleasure in turning to the testimony of the opposite party—of Clarendon, of Johnson, of Hume, to the valour and integrity of Robert Blake. The subject seems to rouse even Hume into enthusiasm.. "Never man," he says, "so zealous for a faction, was so
in France, and that it must get out of Spain with more gravity, but in ten years it would be determined there likewise."—Sir Edward Hyde to Secretary Nicholas, Madrid, February 9, 1651 (Clarendon State Papers, vol. iii., p. 27).
