Page:Historical account of Lisbon college.djvu/99

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HITSORICAL ACCOUNT OF LISBON COLLEGE.
89

epitaph which he had composed for Doctor Barnard: "Mortem tanquam præstitutum iter tranquillus aspexit."

When the moment came in which he was to receive the last Sacraments, he would by no means consent to receive them in bed. Rising, therefore, and with the assistance of the Infirmarian clothing himself in his full College dress and putting on a surplice and stole, he fell on his knees, and in that posture most humbly and devoutly received his Saviour. He expired about four hours afterwards without a struggle, appearing during his last sickness never to have been in the slightest degree troubled by his habitual scruples. He w r as buried the next day in the College Church, where the following epitaph, drawn up by Dr. Buckley, is inscribed on his tomb:

Hic jacet
Hieronymus Allen,
Huj. Coll. Alum, et Presbyter
Litt : Human : et Philos :
Per plures annos
Professor Eximius
Amicis deditus cunctisque benevolus
Ingen. acumen : ac morum candore
Regis et Nobilium amicitiam
Sibi conciliavit
Quorum ope egenos tutatus est
Reditusque Collegii auxit
Anno MDCCCXV.
R. I. P.

Though of a timid conscience he was possessed of great natural intrepidity. This he manifested on the occasion of the great earthquake of 1755 when, with the utmost calmness, during the successive shocks, he went to the College Church, a portion of which had already fallen, in search of his sister whom he knew to be there, quietly leading her out of the danger of being buried under the ruins of the tottering edifice. On the occasions