167 



ALLEN, WILLIAM. 



ALLEYN, EDWARD. 



168 



dexterity, and he was led not unnaturally to turn his attention to 

 scene-painting for theatres then a very popular branch of art After 

 working for a while as assistant to Stanfield and others, he obtained 

 the situation of principal scene-painter at the Olympic Theatre, when 

 that establishment firot came under the management of Madame 

 Vestris ; and his clear style and vigorous pencil did much to secure 

 the success of the brilliant spectacles which formed the distinguishing 

 feature of the management. Allen's early oil-paintings were gene- 

 rally of small size, and represent quiet, homely, pastoral scenery, 

 which was rendered with great delicacy and a nice appreciation of 

 the freshness of natural colour. But though they found purchasers ! 

 amou;; well-known patrons of art, his reputation extended slowly, 

 and he attributed his tanly progress to the placing of his pictures at ! 

 the annual exhibition of the Koyal Academy. He joined himself i 

 therefore to the newly-founded Society of British Artists, and became ; 

 one of its most ardent supporters. All his more important works 

 were thenceforward exhibited in the first instance on its walls ; and 

 he eventually became its secretary. 



Allen did not attain the position his early pictures promised. His 

 inclination and his forte lay towards pastoral scenery. He loved and 

 he could well depict those fresh, open, country scenes, so characteristic 

 of our ' home counties,' which Milton describes as affording constant 

 delight to the city dweller. For these Allen had all a Londoner's 

 relish, and while he painted them with continual reference to the 

 reality, his pictures commanded the sympathy of all who enjoy this 

 style of art. But when he had obtained skill in producing those 

 " brilliant effects," which are BO attractive in conjunction with gas- 

 light and theatrical ' properties,' he be^au to employ them in his 

 pictures, and though he succeeded by such means in sparing himself 

 much thought and labour, while he rendered his pictures more 

 attractive in the exhibition-room, it was at the expense of those 

 higher qualities of truth and propriety which are essential to lasting 

 fame. And the evil was fostered and strengthened by another influ- 

 ence under which he Ml, when he appeared to be about to escape from 

 that of the theatre. From the first establishment of the Art-Union 

 his landscapes won the f.ivour of the prize holders. Seldom possess- 

 ing any knowledge of art, their taste is commonly caught by glare 

 and glitter ; and Allen permitted himself to be driven by the pressure 

 of bis circuiustanct s to paint mor and more with a special regard 

 to them. HU earlier pictures have many admirable qualities, and 

 his latest display great technical and manipulative skill ; but his life 

 was not one of artistic progress, and his is not a name that can 

 pei-manently take a high place among the artists of England. 



Allen died August 26, 1852, of disease of the heart, at the early 

 age of 49 ; leaving a widow and eight children, for whom unhappily 

 he had not b"en able to secure a sufficient provision. 



ALLEN, WILLIAM, was born August 29, 1770. His father was 

 a silk-manufacturer in Spitalfields, and a member of the Society of 

 Friends. Having at an early period shown a predilection for chemical 

 and other pursuits connected with medicine, William was placed in 

 the establishment of Mr. Joseph Gurney Bevan, in Plough-court, 

 Lombard-street, London, where he acquired a practical knowledge of 

 chemistry. He eventually succeeded to the business, which he carried 

 on in connection with Mr. Luke Howard, and acquired great reputa- 

 tion ai a pharmaceutical chemist. About the year 1804 Mr. Allen 

 was appointed lecturer at Guy's Hospital on chemistry and experi- 

 mental philosophy, and he did not wholly retire from this institution 

 until 1827. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1807, 

 and the Society's ' Philosophical Transactions ' contain accounts of 

 several of the more important of his chemical investigations, which 

 were carried on in conjunction with bis friend Mr. Pepys. They 

 established the proportion of carbon in carbonic acid, which was 

 different from that adopted at the time in all systems of chemistry; 

 and they also demonstrated that the diamond was pure carbon. The 

 'Philosophical Transactions' for 1829 contain a paper by Mr. Allen, 

 baaed on elaborate experiments and calculations which he had made 

 on the changes produced on atmospheric air and other gases by 

 tion. .Mr. Allen was mainly instrumental in establishing the 

 Pharmaceutical Society, of which he was president at the time of his 

 death. Besides his public labours as a practical chemist, he pursued 

 with much de.ight in his hours of relaxation the study of astronomy. 

 Many years before his death, Mr. Allen purchased an estate near 

 Linrl field, Sussex, and withdrew from business. Here, while still 

 zealously engaging in public schemes of usefulness and benevolence, 

 ho carried out various philanthropic plans for the improvement of 

 his immediate dependants and poorer neighbours. He erected com- 

 modious cottages on his property, with an ample allotment of land 

 attached to each cottage; and he established schools at Lindfield for 

 boys, girls, and infants, with workshops, out-houses, and play-grounds. 

 About three acres of land were cultivated on the most approved 

 system by the boarders, who also took a part in household work. 

 The subjects taught were land-surveying, mapping, the elements of 

 botany, the use oi' the barometer, rain-gauge, &c., and there was a 

 library with various scientiGc and useful apparatus. Mr. Allen 

 died at his house near Lindfield, December 30, 1843. (Pharmaceutical 

 Journal and Transactions for February, 1844; Memoirt i.f William 

 >itei of Committee of Privy Council, 1842-3, 'Lindfield 

 >1, {> 551.) 



ALLEYN, EDWARD. The lives of actors are seldom associated 

 with any circumstances of permanent interest. They strut and fret 

 their little hour, ara applauded, and are forgotten. It is of small 

 consequence to us now, that Niisho, in 1593, says that "the name of 

 Ned Alleyn on the common stago was able to make an ill matter 

 goad;" that Ben Jonson compares Alleyn with the great actors o 

 Rome, and Thomas Heywood pronounces him 



" Proteus for shapes, and Roscius for a tongue ; " 



that a grave chronicler, Sir Richard Baker, says of Burbage and 

 Alleyn, " They were two such actors as no age must ever look to see 

 the like;" and that Fuller writes, "He was the Roscius of our age, 

 so acting to the life that he made any part, especially a majestic one] 

 to become him." Strong as these testimonies are to the professional 

 merits of Alleyo, they would scarcely warrant any lengthened notice 

 of him, were there not circumstances connected with his public 

 history and his private character which lend an interest and import- 

 ance to his career rarely attaching even to the most celebrated of his 

 cla^s. 



Alleyn was born in 1566, in the parish of St. Botolph without 

 Bishopsgate, London. The register of this parish shows the day of 

 his birth, Sept. 1, which corresponds with entries iu his own Diary. 

 His father, Edward Alleyn, was a citizen and inn-holder in this parish, 

 as we learn from his will, dated the 10th of September, 1570, and 

 proved on the 22nd of the same month. He bequeathed to his wife 

 a life interest in all his lands and tenements, and afterwards to his 

 three children. Mrs. Alleyu, who was of a good family in Lanca- 

 shire, married a second time. Her husband, whose name was Brown, 

 is described as a haberdasher, but he was also an actor ; and thus 

 Fuller was no doubt correct when he states that Edward Alleyn was 

 bred a stage-player. Born only two years later than his great con- 

 temporary Shakspere, and labouring in the same vocation with him 

 for nearly thirty years, the career of Alleyn must offer many parallel 

 circumstances with the career of Shakspere ; and it thus acquires a 

 secondary interest of no inconsiderable value. John Alleyn, the elder 

 brother of Edward, was, like his father, an inn-holder, as we learn 

 from a document bearing the date of 1588-89, in which Edward 

 Alleyn purchases of one Richard Jones, for the sum of thirty-seven 

 pounds ten shillings, his share of "playing apparels, play books, 

 instruments," &c., which Richard Jones has jointly with the brother 

 and step-father of Edward. Mr. Collier conjectures, with great 

 probability, from the circumstance of John being mentioned as an 

 inn-holder whilst he was evidently engaged in a theatrical specula- 

 tion, that " the old practice of employing inn-yards as theatres had 

 not then been entirely abandoned ; and it is not at all impossible that 

 in the time of their father, the yard of his inn had been converted to 

 that purpose, and was so continued by his son John, who succeeded 

 him." John Alleyn however became a distiller in 1594 ; and before 

 this his brother is celebrated by Nashe (iu another passage besides 

 that just quoted) as "famous Ned Alleyn." It is established that 

 he was famous in Greene's ' Orlando Furioso ' and Marlowe's ' Jew of 

 Malta,' both of which belong to the early period of the drama. In 

 1592 he married Joan Woodward, the daughter of Agues Woodward, 

 a widow, who previous to this period had become the wife of Philip 

 Henalowe, one of the principal theatrical managers of that day. 

 Alleyn and Henslowe DOW entered into partnership in their stage 

 concerns. Within six months after his marriage the plague broke 

 out in London, and all the theatrical houses being as usual closed, to 

 prevent the spread of infection, Alleyn and his company, then known 

 as Lord Strange's players, went upon a strolling expedition into the 

 provinces. In the collection of papers in Dulwich College there are 

 letters to and from Alleyn at this period, which are printed in Mr. 

 Collier's 'Memoirs.' Alleyn left his wife and his father-in-law behind 

 him during this temporary emigration, and it is not improbable that 

 Henslowe, who appears to be an ignorant and rapacious person, had 

 infringed the order against dramatic exhibitions, for Alleyn writes to 

 his wife : "Mouse, I little thought to hear that which I now hear 

 by you, for it is well known, they say, that you were by my lord 

 mayor's officer made to ride iu a cart, you and all your fellows, which 

 I am sorry to hear." At this period the players were in constant 

 dispute with the corporation, aud this was probably some petty exer- 

 cise of tyranny from which the company of Henslowe and Alleyn 

 were not protected. Even the queen's players, of whom Shakspere 

 was one, supported as they were by the highest authority, had often 

 to contend with the municipal love of power. And yet at this period, 

 leading a life which was denominated vagabond as far as his pro- 

 vincial excursions were concerned, Edward Alleyn was a man of 

 property, derived either from marriage or inheritance, or from both. 

 In 1596 he sells "the lease of the parsonage of Firle," near Bedding- 

 ham in Sussex, for the large sum of 3000^., to be received iu 

 twenty annual payments of l&Ol. He was probably the lay impro- 

 priator. Here alone was an ample provision for Alleyn and his 

 family, according to the value of money in those days, yet for many 

 years he continued an actor and theatrical manager. The theatre 

 which he and Heuslowe owned from the period of his marriage was 

 the Rose on the Bankaide; but in 1600 they built a new theatre, the 

 Fortune, in Cripplegate, near Red Cross-street. The inhabitants of 

 the neighbourhood petitioned the Privy Council to sanction this 



