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o the wondering council, that Colonel Blake still held out, and that his spirited defence was rousing and rallying the dispersed adherents of Parliament in those parts.' After the siege was raised, the Royalists found that more men of gentle blood had fallen under Blake's fire at Lyme, than in all the other sieges and skirmishes in the western counties since the opening of the war. The details of the siege are given with graphic effect by Mr Dixon, and are only surpassed in interest by those connected with Blake's subsequent and yet more celebrated defence of Taunton, to which the third chapter of this biography is devoted. The hero's fame had become a spell in the west: it was seen that he rivalled Rupert in rapid and brilliant execution, and excelled him in the caution and sagacity of his plans. He took Taunton--a place so important at that juncture, as standing on and controlling the great western highway--in July 1644, within a week of Cromwell's defeat of Rupert at Marston Moor. All the vigour of the Royalists was brought to bear on the captured town; Blake's defence of which is justly characterised as abounding with deeds of individual heroism--exhibiting in its master-mind a rare combination of civil and military genius. The spectacle of an unwalled town, in an inland district, with no single advantage of site, surrounded by powerful castles and garrisons, and invested by an enemy brave, watchful, numerous, and well provided with artillery, successfully resisting storm, strait, and blockade for several months, thus paralysing the king's power, and affording Cromwell time to remodel the army, naturally arrested the attention of military writers at that time; and French authors of this class bestowed on Taunton the name of the modern Saguntum. The rage of the Royalists at this prolonged resistance was extreme. Reckoning from the date when Blake first seized the town, to that of Goring's final retreat, the defence lasted exactly a year, and under circumstances of almost overwhelming difficulty to the besieged party, who, in addition to the fatigue of nightly watches, and the destruction of daily conflicts, suffered from terrible scarcity of provisions. 'Not a day passed without a fire; sometimes eight or ten houses were burning at the same moment; and in the midst of all the fear, horror, and confusion incident to such disasters, Blake and his little garrison had to meet the storming-parties of an enemy brave, exa
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