be found in the works of English authors. Spenser’s Faerie Queene, Swift’s Tale of a Tub, Addison’s Vision of Mirza, and, above all, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, are examples that it would be impossible to match in elaboration, beauty and fitness, from the literature of any other nation.
ALLEGRI, GREGORIO, Italian priest and musical composer, probably of the Correggio family, was born at Rome either in 1560 or in 1585. He studied music under G. Maria Nanini, the intimate friend of Palestrina. Being intended for the church, he obtained a benefice in the cathedral of Fermo. Here he composed a large number of motets and sacred pieces, which, being brought under the notice of Pope Urban VIII., obtained for him an appointment in the choir of the Sistine Chapel at Rome. He held this from December 1629 till his death on the 18th of February 1652. His character seems to have been singularly pure and benevolent. Among the musical compositions of Allegri were two volumes of concerti, published in 1618 and 1619; two volumes of motets, published in 1620 and 1621; besides a number of works still in manuscript. He was one of the earliest composers for stringed instruments, and Kircher has given one specimen of this class of his works in the Musurgia. But the most celebrated composition of Allegri is the Miserere, still annually performed in the Sistine Chapel at Rome. It is written for two choirs, the one of five and the other of four voices, and has obtained a celebrity which, if not entirely factitious, is certainly not due to its intrinsic merits alone. The mystery in which the composition was long enshrouded, no single copy being allowed to reach the public, the place and circumstances of the performance, and the added embellishments of the singers, account to a great degree for much of the impressive effect of which all who have heard the music speak. This view is confirmed by the fact that, when the music was performed at Venice by permission of the pope, it produced so little effect that the emperor Leopold I., at whose request the manuscript had been sent, thought that something else had been substituted. In spite of the precautions of the popes, the Miserere has long been public property. In 1769 Mozart (q.v.) heard it and wrote it down, and in 1771 a copy was procured and published in England by Dr Burney. The entire music performed at Rome in Holy Week, Allegri’s Miserere included, has been issued at Leipzig by Breitkopf and Härtel. Interesting accounts of the impression produced by the performance at Rome may be found in the first volume of Mendelssohn’s letters and in Miss Taylor’s Letters from Italy.
ALLEGRO (an Italian word, meaning “cheerful,” as in Milton’s poem), a term in music to indicate quick or lively time, coming between andante and presto; it is frequently modified by the addition of qualifying words. It is also used of a separate piece of music, or of a movement in a sonata, symphony, &c.
ALLEINE, JOSEPH (1634–1668), English Nonconformist divine, belonged to a family originally settled in Suffolk. As early as 1430 some of them—sprung of Alan, lord of Buckenhall—settled in the neighbourhood of Calne and Devizes, whence descended the immediate ancestors of “worthy Mr Tobie Alleine of Devizes,” father of Joseph, who, the fourth of a large family, was born at Devizes early in 1634. 1645 is marked in the title-page of a quaint old tractate, by an eye-witness, as the year of his setting forth in the Christian race. His elder brother Edward had been a clergyman, but in this year died; and Joseph entreated his father that he might be educated to succeed his brother in the ministry. In April 1649 he entered Lincoln College, Oxford, and on the 3rd of November 1651 he became scholar of Corpus Christi College. On the 6th of July 1653 he took the degree of B.D., and became a tutor and chaplain of Corpus Christi, preferring this to a fellowship. In 1654 he had offers of high preferment in the state, which he declined; but in 1655 George Newton, of the great church of St Mary Magdalene, Taunton, sought him for assistant and Alleine accepted the invitation. Almost coincident with his ordination as associate pastor came his marriage with Theodosia Alleine, daughter of Richard Alleine. Friendships among “gentle and simple”—of the former, with Lady Farewell, grand-daughter of the protector Somerset—bear witness to the attraction of Alleine’s private life. His public life was a model of pastoral devotion. This is all the more remarkable as he found time to continue his studies, one monument of which was his Theologia Philosophica (a lost MS.), a learned attempt to harmonize revelation and nature, which drew forth the wonder of Baxter. Alleine was no mere scholar or divine, but a man who associated on equal terms with the founders of the Royal Society. These scientific studies were, however, kept in subordination to his proper work. The extent of his influence was, in so young a man, unique, resting on the earnestness and force of his nature. The year 1662 found senior and junior pastors like-minded, and both were among the two thousand ejected ministers. Alleine, with John Wesley (grandfather of the celebrated John Wesley), also ejected, then travelled about, preaching wherever opportunity was found. For this he was cast into prison, indicted at sessions, bullied and fined. His Letters from Prison were an earlier Cardiphonia than John Newton’s. He was released on the 26th of May 1664; and in spite of the Conventicle, or Five Mile Act, he resumed his preaching. He found himself again in prison, and again and again a sufferer. His remaining years were full of troubles and persecutions nobly borne, till at last, worn out by them, he died on the 17th of November 1668; and the mourners, remembering their beloved minister’s words while yet with them, “If I should die fifty miles away, let me be buried at Taunton,” found a grave for him in St Mary’s chancel. No Puritan nonconformist name is so affectionately cherished as is that of Joseph Alleine. His chief literary work was An Alarm to the Unconverted (1672), otherwise known as The Sure Guide to Heaven, which had an enormous circulation. His Remains appeared in 1674.
See Life, edited by Baxter; Joseph Alleine: his Companions and Times, by Charles Stanford (1861); Wood’s Athenae, iii. 819; Palmer’s Nonc. Mem. iii. 208.
ALLEINE, RICHARD (1611–1681), English Puritan divine, was born at Ditcheat, Somerset, where his father was rector. He was a younger brother of William Alleine, the saintly vicar of Blandford. Richard was educated at St Alban’s Hall, Oxford, where he was entered commoner in 1627, and whence, having taken the degree of B.A., he transferred himself to New Inn, continuing there until he proceeded M.A. On being ordained he became assistant to his father, and immediately stirred the entire county by his burning eloquence. In March 1641 he succeeded the many-sided Richard Bernard as rector of Batcomb (Somerset). He declared himself on the side of the Puritans by subscribing “The testimony of the ministers in Somersetshire to the truth of Jesus Christ” and “The Solemn League and Covenant,” and assisted the commissioners of the parliament in their work of ejecting unsatisfactory ministers. Alleine continued for twenty years rector of Batcomb and was one of the two thousand ministers ejected in 1662. The Five Mile Act drove him to Frome Selwood, and in that neighbourhood he preached until his death on the 22nd of December 1681. His works are all of a deeply spiritual character. His Vindiciae Pietatis (which first appeared in 1660) was refused licence by Archbishop Sheldon, and was published, in common with other nonconformist books, without it. It was rapidly bought up and “did much to mend this bad world.” Roger Norton, the king’s printer, caused a large part of the first impression to be seized on the ground of its not being licensed and to be sent to the royal kitchen. Glancing over its pages, however, it seemed to him a sin that a book so holy—and so saleable—should be destroyed. He therefore bought back the sheets, says Calamy, for an old song, bound them and sold them in his own shop. This in turn was complained of, and he had to beg pardon on his knees before the council-table; and the remaining copies were sentenced to be “bisked,” or rubbed over with an inky brush, and sent back to the kitchen for lighting fires. Such “bisked” copies occasionally occur still. The book was not killed. It was often reissued with additions, The Godly Man’s Portion in 1663, Heaven Opened in 1666, The World Conquered in 1668. He also published a book of sermons.
