number of instruments and glasses in his room, made the vulgar look upon him as a magician; his servitor would tell them ‘that he met the spirits coming up the stairs like bees.’ (For another quaint story see Aubrey, Letters from Eminent Persons, Lond. 1813, vol. ii. p. 202.) Allen was also a great collector of manuscripts, especially those of history, antiquities, astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy; and it is supposed that those on philosophy fell into the hands of Sir K. Digby, who made use of them in his own works. Allen died in Gloucester Hall, 30 Sept. 1632, and was buried on the following day in the chapel of Trinity College, upon which occasion two learned orations setting forth his merits were read by William Burton and George Bathurst before the vice-chancellor and heads of colleges; they were published the same year. His portrait is still preserved in the president's lodge of Trinity College, from which an engraving was executed by J. Bretherton circa 1770.
Copies of a few of Allen's manuscripts on astrology, &c., chiefly by later hands, are preserved in the Ashmolean Collections, Bodleian library, codices 192, 350, 388, and 1441.
The one by which he is best known, but which has never been printed, is No. 388, ‘Claudii Ptolomæi Peleusiensis de Astrorum Judiciis, aut ut vulgo vocant Quadripartitæ Constructionis, liber secundus [et liber tertius] cum Expositione Thomæ Alleyn Angli Oxoniensis.’ This manuscript would appear to be the original. He also made some learned notes upon Joh. Bale's ‘Scriptorum Illustrium Maioris Britanniæ Calalogus,’ Basileæ, 1557–9, fol., which were afterwards printed at the end of Leland's ‘Itinerary,’ vol. ix. Among the Cotton MSS. are to be found two original letters from Allen to Camden, the historian, dated respectively 1 March, 1619, and 19 Nov. 1621. The latter, which was printed in Camden's ‘Epistolæ,’ is not without literary interest; it doubtless procured for Allen's friend, Degory Wheare, the appointment, on 10 Oct. 1622, to the first Camden professorship of history at Oxford.
[Burton and Bathurst, Orationes Binæ, Lond. 1632; Epicedum Magistri Thomæ Alleni, in Epistola Thomæ Mori, Rich. Jamesius, Oxoniæ, 1633, 4to; Fuller, Worthies of England, Lond. 1662, part ii. p. 46; Camden, Epistolæ, Lond. 1691, p. 315; Biographia Britannica, Lond. 1747, vol. i. p. 106; Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses, ed. Bliss, Lond. 1815, 4to, vol. ii. pp. 542–4; Biographical Dictionary, S. D. U. K., vol. ii. p. 201, 8vo, 1842; Cotton MS. (Jul. C. 5, fols. 295, 353).]
ALLEN, THOMAS (1608–1673), a famous nonconformist divine, was born at Norwich in 1608, and was educated in his native city. He proceeded to the university of Cambridge, being entered of Caius College, where he took the degrees of B.A. and M.A. in ordinary course. Having received license and holy orders, he was appointed to the parish church of St. Edmund's of Norwich. But he was too pronouncedly evangelical and too outspoken for reformation doctrine as against popish to be long endured by the bishop of the diocese at the time. Bishop Wren ‘silenced’ him in 1636, together with the learned William Bridge and others, for refusing to read ‘The Book of Sports.’ In 1638 he passed over as a fugitive to New England. Cotton Mather testified that he ‘approved himself a pious and painful minister of the Gospel at Charlestown.’ He remained in New England until 1651, and Dr. W. B. Sprague, in his ‘Annals’ of the American pulpit, enrols his name among the worthies of New England. He returned in 1651–2 to Norwich, where he remained ‘in the exercise of his ministry’ until 1662. Curiously enough, his ministry was twofold—firstly, he became rector of St. George's, Norwich, yet, secondly, he was also chosen ‘pastor of the congregational church’ there (1657). The explanation is that Allen was ‘preacher of the city’ in St. George's parish rather than ‘rector,’ and as such was ejected among the two thousand. He died 21 Sept. 1673, His books are exceedingly rare, and of uncommon vigour and tenderness combined. His ‘Invitation to Thirsty Sinners to come to their Saviour,’ published in Boston, Massachusetts, has fetched fabulous prices. His ‘Glory of Christ set forth, with the Necessity of Faith,’ furnishes an excellent example of the average sermons of the ‘ejected’—strong, clear English, and full of ‘the Gospel’ as a honeycomb of honey. The work that won him most celebrity was his ‘Chain of Scripture Chronology from the Creation to the Death of Christ’ (1659). The renowned William Greenhill wrote the preface, and it immediately became famous at home and abroad. It is said that its author was glad to leave others to ‘dispute’ while he should ‘compute.’
[Palmer's Nonconf. Mem. iii. 11–12; Cotton Mather's Magnalia (1702), bk. iii. 215; Works, as cited.]
ALLEN, THOMAS (1681–1755), divine, was born at Oxford 25 Dec. 1681, educated at New College school and Wadham, where he took the degree of B.A. on 2 July 1705; he was for a time a clerk in Lincoln's Inn; then became a schoolmaster; was ordained in 1705; in February 1706 he became vicar
