[Blake, Robert], the great English admiral and "Sea King," born at Bridgewater; successful as a soldier under the Commonwealth, before he tried seamanship; took first to sea in pursuit of Prince Rupert and the royalist fleet, which he destroyed; beat the Dutch under Van Tromp de Ruyter and De Witt; sailed under the great guns of Tunis into the harbour, where he fired a fleet of Turkish pirates; and finally, his greatest feat, annihilated a Spanish fleet in Santa Cruz Bay under the shadow of the Peak of Teneriffe, "one of the fiercest actions ever fought on land or water" (1598-1657).
[Blake, William], poet, painter, and engraver, born in London, where, with rare intervals, he spent his life a mystic from his very boyhood; apprenticed to an engraver, whom he assisted with his drawings; started on original lines of his own as illustrator of books and a painter; devoted his leisure to poetry; wrote "Songs of Innocence," "Marriage of Heaven and Hell," "Gates of Paradise," and "Songs of Experience"; was an intensely religious man of deep spiritual insight, most vivid feeling and imagination; illustrated Young's "Night Thoughts," Blair's "Grave," and the "Book of Job." He was a man of stainless character but eccentric habits, and had for wife an angel, Catherine Boucher (1757-1828).
[Blanc, Charles], a French art critic, brother of Louis Blanc (1813-1882).
[Blanc, Jean Joseph Louis], a French Socialist, born at Madrid; started as a journalist, founded the Revue du Progrès, and published separately in 1840 "Organisation of Labour," which had already appeared in the Revue, a work which gained the favour of the working-classes; was member of the Provisional Government of 1848, and eventually of the National Assembly; threatened with impeachment, fled to England; returned to France on the fall of the Empire, and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1871; wrote an "elaborate and well-written" "History of the French Revolution"; died at Cannes (1811-1882).
[Blanc, Mont], the highest mountain in Europe, 15,780 ft., almost entirely within France; sends numerous glaciers down its slopes, the Mer de Glace the chief.
[Blanchard, François], a celebrated French aëronaut, inventor of the parachute; he fell from his balloon and was killed at the Hague (1738-1809).
[Blanchard, Laman], a prolific periodical and play writer, born at Yarmouth; a man of a singularly buoyant spirit, crushed by calamities; died by suicide (1803-1845).
[Blanche of Castile], wife of Louis VIII. of France and mother of St. Louis; regent of France during the minority of her son and during his absence in crusade; governed with great discretion and firmness; died of grief over the long absence of her son and his rumoured intention to stay in the Holy Land (1186-1252).
[Blanchet, The Abbé], French littérateur; author of "Apologues and Tales," much esteemed (1707-1784).
[Blandrata, Giorgio], Piedmontese physician, who for his religious opinions was compelled to take refuge, first in Poland, then in Transylvania, where he sowed the seeds of Unitarianism (1515-1590).