But his days are numbered. In three short years he will go hence, and in two years more a Stuart will sit on the throne, and at his coming England will be “reduced to a nullity”—aye, and worse, to reproach and shame. Worn out with constant anxiety, the death of a favourite daughter brings him speedily to the valley of the shadow. “I would be willing to live,” murmurs the dying man, “to be further serviceable to God and His people; but my work is done.” He lies on his deathbed while a great storm rages over England. In the morning calm succeeds tempest, and on the anniversary of his great victories at Dunbar and Worcester he breathes his last. They bury him in Westminster Abbey, amidst the kings; but his bones are not long to rest in that hallowed fane. The Stuart king, to his everlasting shame, will tear the unoffending body from its coffin and gibbet it in unavailing contempt. But ages to come will do him tardy justice, and men will come to honour his memory even while they lift their hats and pray, “God save the king!” [Illustration] [Illustration: =Cromwell dictating Dispatches to Milton.= (_From the picture by Ford Madox Brown, in the Manchester Art Gallery. By permission of the Manchester Corporation._)] [Illustration] ROBERT BLAKE. “_Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell_ _Your manly hearts shall glow,_ _As ye sweep through the deep,_ _While the stormy winds do blow,_ _While the battle rages loud and long,_ _And the stormy winds do blow._” An admiral sits writing at a table in the cabin of his dismasted flagship, the _Triumph_. He is a short, squat, ungainly man, but within that unprepossessing exterior there is one of the most heroic and purely patriotic souls that ever existed. His heavy face is clouded by deep depression. He is a beaten man, and he is even now inditing the frank and ungarnished story of his defeat to the Lords of the Council. “Your honours,” he writes, “I hope it will not be unreasonable for me to desire your honours that you would think of giving me, your unworthy servant, a discharge from this employment so far too great for me, that so I may be freed from that burden of spirit which lies upon me, arising from the sense of my own insufficiency.” He finishes his task, signs it “Robert Blake, Admiral,” strews the sand upon the wet ink, folds the missive, and dispatches it. What is the meaning of this scene? You see a man of the sublimest courage and the most ardent patriotism humiliated and vexed with himself because he has failed to achieve the impossible. A little more than a month ago he met the Dutch fleet, and fought a furious battle which raged until nightfall, when the foe, too severely handled to continue the struggle, drew off and sailed for home. “Nothing in this to be ashamed of,” you will say; but you do not yet know the whole story.