that when the colonel applied himself to the business, such as it was, of his office, he went by the name of ‘trade,’ while his colleagues were called the ‘board.’ He refused in 1717 the appointment of envoy extraordinary to Spain, bunt accepted the post of first commissury and plenipotentiary to the conference at Antwerp in 1732 for drawing up the tariff's between this country, the Emperor of Germany, and the States General. He ranked among the steadiest supporters of Sir Robert Walpo1e, and often spoke in the debates on fiscal, naval, or military matters, his adherence being so marked that Horace Walpole says (Letters, i. 130) that it was proposed to impeach him for his share in the Antwerp conference. Bladen died 15 Feb. 1746, and was buried in the chancel of Stepney Church, the inscription on the tomb being preserved in Lysons's ‘Environs.’ His first wife was Mary, daughter of Colonel Gibbs; the second, whom he married in 1728, was Frances, niece and heir of Colonel Joseph Jory, and widow of John Foche of Aldborough Hatch, Essex. With her he acquiied a considerable estate, and on it he built a new house, now destroyed, at a considerable cost. She died 14 Aug. 1747. His sister was the mother of Lord Hawke, the great admiral, in whose advancement he materially aided. The colonel composed a dull tragi-comedy, ‘Solon, or Philosophy no Defence against Love. With the masque of Orpheus and Euridice’ (1705), and translated ‘Caesar’s Commentaries of his Wars in Gaul, and Civil War with Pompey, with supplement commentaries and life.’ The latter work, which was dedicated to the Duke of Marlborough, originally appeared in 1712, and the seventh edition was published in 1770. To an issue which was brought out in 1750, Bowyer, the learned printer, added many notes signed ‘Typogr.’ These were included, with many additional observations, in Bowyer's ‘Miscell. Tracts' (1785), pp. 189-222. A person of the name of Bladen is satirised in the fourth book of Pope’s ‘Dunciad,’ line 500, and this is sometimes supposed to have referred to Martin Bladen.
[Welch's Westminster Scholars, p. 230; Lysons's Environs, iii. 430-1, iv. 86; Nichols’s Lit. Anecdotes, ii. 222-3; Morant's Essex, i. 7; Blore’s Rutland, 180-1; Burrows's Lord Hawke, 77, 110-32; Notes and Queries, 2nd series, vii. 326, 1865.]
BLAGDEN, Sir CHARLES (1748–1820), physician, was born on 17 April 1748. In 1768 he graduated M.D. at the university of Edinburgh, selecting as the subject of his thesis for the occasion ‘De Causis Apoplexiæ.’ This treatise was afterwards published. Blagden then entered the army as a medical officer, and remained in the service till 1814, in which year he was present in Paris with the allied armies, as a physician of the British forces. During his military career he is said to have acquired a considerable fortune, and this was augmented by a legacy of 16,000l. bequeathed to him by the celebrated chemist, Cavendish, with whom he was on intimate terms. Blagden also enjoyed for fifty years the friendship of Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, and to this circumstance he owed his election us secretary of the society at a disturbed period in its history. Blagden was elected fellow on 25 June 1772, and was admitted 12 Nov. of the same year. In 1784 arose the quarrel between Banks and his opponents [see Banks, Sir Joseph], in consequence of which Mr. Maty resigned the secretaryship, and Sir Joseph Banks proposed Blagden for the vacant post. In the result he was elected on 5 May 1784 by a large majority in a crowded meeting. Blagden was a careful worker in physical research, and contributed many papers to the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ besides publishing several papers on medical subjects. Perhaps the most noteworthy of his physical papers is that on the ‘Cooling of Water below its Freezing Point,’ read on 31 Jan. 1788.
He would seem also to have interested himself to some extent in antiquarian matters, as we find him mentioned in a letter of the Rev. Sam. Denne (1799) as inspecting, in company with Lord Palmerston, the ancient Clausentum at Southampton (Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, vol. vi.) Among the ‘Johnsoniana’ which Langton communicated to Boswell is the statement that, talking of Blagden’s copiousness and precision of communication, Dr. Johnson said: ‘Blagden, sir, is a delightful fellow’ (Boswell's Johnson, vii. 377). Hannah More describes him as so modest, so sensible, and so knowing, that he exemplifies Pope’s line: ‘Wil1ing to teach, and yet not proud to know’ (Life, ii. 98).
Blagden travelled a good deal abroad, and for the last six years of his life always passed six months of the year in France. He was elected in 1769 a correspondent of the Académie des Sciences of Paris. He died suddenly on 26 March 1820 at the house of his friend Berthollet, the renowned chemist, at Arcueil, near Paris.
Blagden was author of the following: 1. ‘Experiments and Observations in a Heated Room’ (Phil. Trans. 1775). 2. ‘On the Heat of the Water in the Gulf Stream’ (ib. 1781). 3. ‘History of the Congelation of Quicksilver’ (ib. 1783). 4. ‘An Account of
