I 



ALI.KTK. EDWARD. 



ALLKYN, KDWARD. 



1W 



DO ne aau previously acquired 01 

 particularly by a large purchase in 

 which Mr. Collier auppoeoi wu Shai 

 ntirrment from London. There is, ho 



and UM parochial favour seem* to hare been rrry akUfully 

 . The hnejebolden approred the sebeine "because the 

 of UM (aid house are contenteil to gire a very liberal portion 

 of money weekly towards the relief of our poor," and " because our 

 pariah Is not able to relieve them.- We may thus form some idea of 

 UM profit* of UM <arly dramatic performance* when audience* wen 

 contented to be delighted and instructed with the words of a play 

 without the aid of costly decorations. But AUeyn and his father-in- 

 law had othrr sources of profit : they were the owners of the dog* 

 and bear* which were exhibited at Pans Garden, snd in time Henslowe 

 and AUeyn became patentee* of UM office of " the mutenhip of His 

 Majesty's (runes of bean, bulb, and dog*." In 1603 the plague again 

 drore AUryn and his company out of London, and a letter from bis 

 wife to him at this period bring* u* cloarr to Sbaksprre than any 

 other contemporary record. The good lady say*, in this torn and 

 mutilated paper, " About* a werke a goe there came a youthe who 

 aid he wu Mr. Frauncis Cbalouer, who would hare borrowed x"- to 

 hare bought thing* for .... snd said he r>u known unto you, and 



Mr. 8hakr*ptan of th* Globe, who came said be knewe bym 



not, onely he horde of bym that he wu a roge so he wu 



(lade we did not lend him the monney." After the accession of 

 James, Aileyn'* company became 'the Prince's Players,' u Shaks- 

 pere's wu the Kings; and baring purchased the patent office of 

 aster of the king's game*, Hrnslowe and Alleyn, in 1606, rebuilt 

 Paris Garden for those disgusting exhibitions in which the court and 

 the populace equally delighted. The patentee* bad the right of 

 ending bear-wards into the country ; and account* at Dulwich exhibit 

 the expense and profits of such exhibitions. Thus accumulating 

 property in various way*, Alleyn wu so thriring a man in 1606 u 

 to bare purchased the manor of Dulwich from Sir Francis Calton. 

 Upon the death of Henslowe in 1616, and of bis wife in the following 

 year, Alleyn succeeded to the greater part of their theatrical property ; 

 and be had previously acquired other property of the same nature, 

 ' in the Blackfriars Theatre in 1612, 

 i Shakspere's share, sold by him on bis 

 There is, however, no distinct evidence for this 

 assumption. It i* nowhere stated to whom the money, being a total of 

 59M. 6*. Sol, wu paid for this portion of the lease and other property. 



AUeyn commenced the building of Dulwich College in 1613. 

 Preriou* to thi* he appears to hare discontinued appearing on the 

 stage u an actor ; but Aubrey, in hi* ' Miscellanies,' connects the 

 foundation of Dulwich College 'the college of God's Gift,' u 

 AUeyn called it with a circumstance which strongly recommend* 

 itself to the imagination of the credulous antiquarian : " The tradition 

 was, that playing a demon with six othen in one of Shakspere's plays, 

 he wu in the midst of the play surprised by an apparition of the 

 deril, which so worked on bis fancy that he made a TOW which he 

 performed at this place " (Dulwich). This is clearly an adaptation of 

 the story told wiih great solemnity by Pryune, in his 'Histrio-Mastix,' 

 in his reciul of the judgment* against players and play-haunters: 



Nor yet to recite the sudden fearful burning, even to the ground, 

 both ol the Globe and Fortune playhouse*, no man perceiving bow 

 the** fire* came : together with the risible apparition of the deril on 

 the stage at the Bel Savage playhouse, in Queen Elizabeth's days (to 

 the grot smstenxmt both of the actors and spectators), whiles they 

 were there profanely playing the History of Fauntus (the truth of which 

 I bare beard from many now alive, who well remember it), there being 

 some distracted with that fearful night" It is evident that Alleyn, 

 having oonaiderablo riches and no family, had, before be resolved 

 upon the particular appropriation of hi* wealth, not only acquir .1 .-i 

 reputation for bmerolenoe, but intimated an intention to make an 

 endowment for seme charitable institution. Samuel Jeynens, pro- 

 bably a clergyman, applies to AUeyn to render come assistance for the 

 completion of Chelsea College, by letter, in the beginning of which 

 be says, " Blessed be God, who hu stirred up your heart to do so 

 many gracious and good deeds to God's glory." The object of Chelsea 

 ColUfe wu "that learned men might there hare maintenance to 

 newer all the adversaries of religion." The ume writer adds, " Or, 

 if I might move another project to yourself, that it would please you 

 to build some half a score lodging rooms, more or less, near unto 

 you, if it b no more but to give lodging to diren scholars that come 

 from the university." Allsyn took hi* own course. In 1616 he had 

 nearly completed hi* establishment at Dulwich, and in the autumn of 

 that year the Earl of Arundtl writes to him with a familiarity which 

 show* UM narwct entertained for Alleyn's character, and the know- 

 ledf* amoorst UM higher ranks of hi* benevolent purposes. The earl 

 tfnmn the player u hi* " loving friend," and says, Whereu 

 I am given to understand that you are in hand with an hospital for 

 the succouring of poor old people and the maintenance and education 

 of you*, and bare now almost perfected your charitable work, 1 am 

 at the instant request of this bearer to desire you to accept of a poor 

 fatherless boy to be one of your number." The incumbent of St 

 Betalpha. the parish In which Allsyn waa born, wu at this period 

 then Gossan, who six and thirty years before wu the furious adver- 

 sary of posts and players, and " such like caterpillars of a common- 

 wealth. The pipers of Dulwich College show that Alleyn wu 

 to give a pnfereoos to the poor of his native parish in 

 the inmate* of hi* hospital; and that Goeton wu j-erticu. 



larly diligent in recommending individuals to his farour. There 

 were leiral difficulties in the establishment of ' God's Gift College ' u 

 a foundation ; and no less a person than the Chancellor Bacon thought 

 it his duty to resist the completion of Aileyn ' wishes. The chan- 

 cellor thus write* to the Marquis of Buckingham : " I now write to 

 give the king an account of the patent I bare stayed at the seal : it 

 u of license to give in mortmain eight hundred pounds land, though 

 it be of tenure in chief, to Allen that was the player, for an hospital. 

 I like well that Allen playeth the lut act of hia life so well, but if 

 His Majesty gire way thus to amortize his tenures, the Court of 

 Wards will decay, which I had well hoped should Improrr. But that 

 which moved me chiefly is, that His Maje-ty now lately did abso- 

 lutely deny Sir Henry Sarille for two hundred pounds, and Sir Edward 

 Sandys for one hundred pounds, to the perpetuating of two lectures, 

 the one in Oxford, the other in Cambridge, foundations of singulsr 

 honour to His Majesty, and of which there i* great wsnt; whereas 

 hospitals abound, and beggars abound never a whit less. If His 

 Majesty do like to pas* the book at all, yet if he would be pleased to 

 abridge the eight hundred pounds to fire hundred pound*, and then 

 gire way to the other two books for the universities, it were a princely 

 work, and I would make an humble suit to the king, and desire your 

 lordship to join in it, that it might be so." The opposition of the 

 chancellor wu however overruled, and Aileyn was allowed to dispose 

 of hi* munificent endowment of eight hundred pounds a year according 

 to his own wishes. The college was for the support and maintenance 

 of one master, one warden, and four fellows, three of whom were to 

 be ecclesiastics, and the other a skilful organist ; also six poor men, six 

 women, and twelve boys to be educated in pood literature. The 

 patent pawed the great seal on the 21st of June, 1619; aud on the 

 13th of the following September Aileyn formally and publicly dispos- 

 sessed himself of this the greater part of his property, and thence- 

 forward he and his wife lived in this foundation upon a footing of 

 equality with those whom they had raised into comfort and compara- 

 tive opulence. Thomas Hey wood, in his ' Vindication of Actors ' (a 

 remodelling of his 'Apology for Actors '), says, "When thii college 

 was finished, this famous man wu so equally mingled with humility 

 and charity that he became his own pensioner, humbly submitting 

 himself to that pro|>ortion of diet aud clothes which he had bestowed 

 on others." Aileyn appears to have had a full and earnest enjoyment 

 in his rare munificence. In his diary, under the date of Hay 26, 

 1620, is this passage : " My wife aud I acknowledge the fine at the 

 Common Pleas' bar of all my lands to the college : blessed be God 

 that has lent us life to do it." He had property enough to bestow on 

 other charitable objects. In 1620 we find him fouuding almshouses 

 in Finsbury. His diary gives us a curious picture of his habits after 

 his retirement to Dulwich. He wu still master of the king's games ; 

 and thus we find him on one day baiting before the king at Green- 

 wich; on another, giving the twelve brothers aud sisters of the 

 college their new gowns ; and on another, going to Croydou fair to 

 sell his brown mare. His property still went on accumulating. In 

 1620 he bought the manor of Lewisham. In 1621 the Fortune 

 Theatre, of which he was the chief proprietor, was burnt. He enters 

 the fact in bis diary, without a single observation, and quietly sets 

 about rebuilding it His wife Joan died in 1623. He was very soon 

 married again, to a lady whose Christian name wu Constance, and 

 who is supposed to have been a daughter of the celebrated Dr. Donne. 

 Aileyn lived with, his second wife only about two years. His will, 

 dated November 13, 1626, states that he was sick in body; and on 

 the 25th of the same month he died, and was buried in the chapel of 

 his college, called Christ Chapel, in a plain manner, according to his 

 special direction. By hia will he endowed twenty almshouses, ten in 

 the parish of St Botolph, aud ten in St Saviour's, Southwork ; and 

 he left considerable legacies to his wife and other relations. Fuller, 

 some forty years after the death of Aileyn, when the opinions of the 

 Puritans had thrown discredit upon the noblest u well as the most 

 innocent actions of those who had been connected with the theatre, 

 thus writes of the founder of Dnlwich College : " He got a very great 

 estate, and in his old age, following Christ's counsel (on what forcible 

 notice belongs not to me to inquire), ' be made friends of bis un- 

 righteous mammon,' building therewith a fair college, at Dulwich in 

 Kent, for the relief of poor people. Some, I confess, count it built 

 on a foundered foundation, seeing in a spiritual SCUM none is good aud 

 lawful money save what is honestly and industriously gotten lint per- 

 chance such who condemn Muter Aileyn herein hare as bad shillings 

 in the bottom of their own bags, if search were made tin i 



The founder of Dulwich College had a singular partiality for persons 

 bearing his own name. Advantage wu probably taken of this 

 peculiarity, which we must call a weakness. Dckker writes to him to 

 introduce the sou of a Kentish yeoman : " He is a young man loving 

 you, being of your name, and desires no greater happiness than to 

 depend upon you." Howes, the continuator of Stow's 'Chronicle,' 

 mentions about 1614, that Aileyn wai building his college, and that 

 he intended the master always to be of the name of Allen, or Aileyn. 

 This limitation continues to exist Dulwich College now possesses 

 very large revenues ; and the situation of master especially is one of 

 great value. Aileyn left a collection of pictures there, to which, 

 additions were gradually made ; but in 1810 Sir Francis Bourgeois 

 bequeathed to the college his valuable collection, which bo had pre- 



