Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/142

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and his father-in-law built the Fortune theatre in Cripplegate; and on the accession of King James in 1603, their company was known as "The Prince's players." Our actor had also a share in a bear-garden, and held with his partner the mastership of the royal games of bears, bulls, and dogs. From all these sources of revenue, it is not surprising that Alleyn amassed considerable wealth, and added not a little to his paternal inheritance, and to the dowry his wife had brought him. In 1606 he was rich enough to buy the manor of Dulwich in Kent, and in 1612 to purchase a large interest in the Blackfriars' theatre, some say Shakspeare's share, which he sold when he retired from London.

During these years he had conceived the benevolent purpose of devoting the goodly manor of Dulwich to the foundation of a college, for the maintenance of twelve poor men and women, and the education and support of as many children, with a master, a warden, and four fellows. He began in 1613 to erect the building, and about the time of his wife's death, in 1617, had everything in readiness. There was some opposition to granting the royal letters patent, for devoting his £800 annually to the support of the college. It was made chiefly by Lord Bacon, who was desirous of turning part of the money into another, and what he thought a more useful channel. In 1619, however, Alleyn's wishes were granted, and the ceremony of formally dispossessing himself of this part of his property was gone through; while he and his wife (for he had married again) entered the college on the same footing as the objects of his charity. Various motives have, of course, been assigned for this great benevolence on the part of a successful player; we are told many things "which nobody is in the least bound to believe." Some speak of the gratification of vanity, while others tell us that Alleyn was frightened into it by a real apparition of the devil made to him once, when he was acting "the part of a demon with six others." Setting aside the theory of this "forcible notice," as old Fuller calls it—for we can scarce look upon the gift as conscience-money, seeing he did not renounce his connection with the stage—the fact seems to be that Alleyn was long known as a benevolent man, and the poor authors who wrote for "The Fortune" seem often to have appealed, and not in vain, to his kind heart for payments not fully due, and for which they dared not come directly to the elder and more business-like partner. Some old papers in Dulwich college contain curious entries made by Henslowe, of sums of money "lent to Mr. Alleyn to lend unto" Ben Jonson, Thomas Decker, or some other needy writer. In addition to Dulwich college, Alleyn founded twenty alms-houses, the half of them in his native parish, and the other half in St. Saviour's, Southwark. He died 25th November, 1626, and was buried in the chapel of the college.—(Knight's Cyclopædia, and Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary.)—J. B.

ALLIBOND, Peter, born 1560, died 1629, rector of Cheyneys, Bucks, and father of John Allibond, the author of a Latin satire on the parliamentary visitors at Oxford.

ALLIER, Achille, a French antiquary, whose work, entitled "L'Ancien Bourbonnais," splendidly illustrated, and continued by a number of learned men and artists after his death, was published at Paris in 1833-37, and contains much information on the manners, monuments, and history of ancient France.

* ALLIER, Antoine, a French statuary, born at Embrun in 1793. In the earlier part of his life an officer in a cavalry regiment, he withdrew from the army in 1815, and devoted himself mainly to art, though he was, during many years previous to 1851, representative for the department of the Hautes Alpes. Allier's best statues adorn the Chamber of Deputies.—A. M.

ALLIER, Louis, a numismatist, part of whose rare collection of coins is now in the Bibliothèque National at Paris. His researches embraced especially the Archipelago and Asia Minor. Born at Lyons in 1766; died at Paris in 1827.

ALLIES, Jabez, an antiquarian, born in Worcestershire in 1787, practised for some years as a solicitor in London, making while there several communications to the Society of Antiquaries, and to the Archæological Institute. He afterwards retired to his native county, following his favourite pursuit, and died in 1856, leaving a work, entitled "The Ancient British-Roman and Saxon Antiquities and Folk-lore of Worcestershire."—(Gentleman's Magazine.)—J. B.

ALLIO, Matteo, and his brother Tommaso, two Milanese sculptors of eminent skill, working for the cathedral of Milan in 1748. They executed several bas-reliefs for the Certosa di Pavia.

* ALLIOLI, Joseph Francis, a German theologian, some time professor in the university of Landshut, but, since the year 1831, grand-vicar of Augsburg. His latest work is a "Handbuch der Biblischen Alterthumskunde," (Hankbook of Biblical Antiquities,) published at Landshut in 1841. Allioli was born at Salzbach in 1793.

ALLIONI, Carlo, a physician in Piedmont, and professor of botany in the university of Turin, was born in 1725. He was eminent as a botanist, and published some valuable works, especially the "Flora Piedmontana," in three volumes folio, containing an account of nearly three thousand indigenous plants of Piedmont. A genus of plants is named Allionia, in honour of him. He died in 1804.—J. H. B.

ALLIOT, Peter, a French physician of the seventeenth century, was a native of Bar-le-Duc. He pretended to have discovered a cure for cancer, and was summoned from Lorraine to attend the mother of Louis XIV., attacked by that disease. His prescription, a metallic powder, only aggravated the sufferings of his patient, and, after a short residence at the court of St. Germains, he was supplanted in the care of Anno of Austria by a practitioner from Milan, in whose hands she expired. Alliot was the author of several treatises. He left two sons, the eldest of whom, John Baptist, physician to Louis XIV., in a work on the nature of cancer (1698), described the treatment pursued by his father. Both father and son were of opinion that the disease was produced by an acid humour in the glands, and that it was to be counteracted by an alkali. They recommended, therefore, as a lotion to be applied to cancerous ulcers, a preparation of realgar, dissolved in a strong alkaline solution, and precipitated by the acetate of lead.—J. S., G.

ALLIX, James Alexander Francis, a French general, born in 1776. Colonel at twenty years of age, he took part in the battle of Marengo, and in the expedition to St. Domingo. Having been overlooked at the commencement of the empire, he transferred his services to Jerome of Westphalia, and was named general of division. He returned to France in 1815, and held an important command during the Hundred Days. Died, 1836.

ALLIX, Pierre, a learned divine, first of the Reformed church of France, and afterwards of the church of England, was born at Alençon in 1641, where his father was a protestant minister. Endowed with excellent talents and a strong love of learning, he studied in the colleges of Saumur and Sedan, and commenced his ministry in the small church of St. Agnobile in Champagne. His eloquence in the pulpit was equal to his assiduity and success in the acquisition of theological learning; and he was ere long translated to the more important post of Rouen, and from thence again, in 1670, to the church of Charenton, near Paris, the principal charge of the Reformed church of France, in which he had the honour of being the immediate successor of the celebrated Daille. In this distinguished post he signalized himself by the ability with which he defended the Reformed church against the eloquent attacks of Bossuet, and became associated with Claude in the preparation of a new version of the Bible. In 1685 he was compelled, by the revocation of the edict of Nantes, to take refuge with his family in England, and founded in London a French church, which conformed to the liturgy of the church of England. The fame of his uncommon learning had preceded him, and he was received with great kindness by the English clergy. Continuing his studies as an exile, and having mastered the language of his adopted country, he published in 1688, and dedicated to James II., the work by which he is still best and most familiarly known, "Reflections upon the Books of the Holy Scriptures, to establish the Truth of the Christian Religion." These "Reflections" were included by Bishop Watson in his series of "Tracts," and were reprinted in Oxford as late as 1822. Directing his efforts equally against Romanists and Rationalists, he published in succession, in 1686, "Determinatio F. Joannis Parisiensis de modo existendi Corporis Christi in Sacramento Altaris," accompanied by a dissertation from his own pen, to show that the dogma of transubstantiation was not fixed as an article of the church of Rome till the council of Trent; in 1690, "Some Remarks on the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of Piedmont," followed, in 1692, by "Remarks upon the Ecclesiastical History of the Ancient Churches of the Albigenses;" in 1689, "The Judgment of the Ancient Jewish Church against the Unitarians in the Controversy upon the Holy Trinity," a work in which he discovered the depth and accuracy of his Hebrew and rabbinical