extremely popular, being printed in many editions at home and abroad, both in Latin and translated into modern languages. This work claims to be entirely practical, and not to deal with the new views and hypotheses which abounded in the medicine of the time, but makes no pretensions to originality. It gives, under the head of each disease, the opinions of various authors, ancient and modern, to which the writer added, especially in later editions, certain observations of his own. Allen published also ‘Specimina Ichnographica; or a brief narrative of several new inventions and experiments,’ London, 1730, 4to, pp. 44. These inventions were three: (1) a new method of saving coal in the engine for raising water by fire (i.e. Savery and Newcomen's atmospheric steam-engine) by enclosing the fire within the boiler; (2) a further proposal to place such an engine, made by this improvement more portable, in a ship, and, by forcing water out of the stern, to make the vessel move, so that it could be navigated in a calm; if ever carried out, this would have been probably the first known model of a steamship; and (3) a new method of drying malt. These inventions were patented. Allen is also said to have invented a new model of a chariot going on steel springs, probably at that time a novelty. In 1730 Allen was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, to which he had in 1716 communicated a paper containing the plan of a ‘Perpetual Log’ for ships. He died 16 Sept. 1741.
The editions of the ‘Synopsis Medicinæ’ were very numerous. In the following list those marked with an asterisk have been verified by the present writer:—Latin: first edition, Londini, *1719, 8vo, third (enlarged), ibid. *1729, 1749; Amstelodami, 1720, 1723, *1730 (ed. quinta); Venetiis, 1732, *1762; Francofurti, 1749, 1753. English: translated by a physician, 2 vols., London, *1730, 8vo; translated by the author, 2 vols., London, *1733, 8vo, also 1740, 1761. French: translated by Devaux, with additions, Paris, *1728, 3 vols. 12mo; translated by Boudon, Paris, 1737, 6 vols., ibid. 1741, 7 vols., 1752, 7 vols. German: Budissin, 1726.
[Gent. Mag. 1741, p. 500; Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, i. 152, 411, 431; Eloy's Dict. Historique; Brit. Mus. Catalogue; Munk's College of Physicians, 2nd ed. i. 485.]
ALLEN, JOHN (fl. 1764), nonconformist divine, became minister in 1764 of the Baptist church in Petticoat Lane, having been previously a preacher at Salisbury. On settling in London he opened a linendraper's shop in Shoreditch. He failed in business, and passed some time in the King's Bench. He was acquitted on a trial for forgery; but his church gave him up for bad behaviour. His next congregation, at Broadstairs, Newcastle, had also to dismiss him; and he retired to New York, where he preached to large congregations till his death at an uncertain date. ‘It is to be feared that he was deficient in principle,’ or rather in practice; but he published a good many tracts, which have been frequently reprinted, some of them with commendatory prefaces by W. Romaine. One of these was the ‘Spiritual Magazine,’ which originally appeared in sixpenny numbers in 1752, and professes to contain a ‘compleat body of divinity.’ Others are:
- ‘The Door of Knowledge opened in a Spiritual Campaign;’
- ‘The Christian Pilgrim; or the Travels of the Children of Israel Spiritualised;’
- ‘A Chain of Truths; or a Dissertation upon the Harmony of the Gospels;’
- ‘A compendious Descant of the Autogenial and Theanthropos Glories of Christ; or the Crown of Crowns set upon the head of King Jesus.’
Allen called himself a ‘strict Trinitarian,’ and was a high Calvinist, with an attachment for some of Hutchinson's opinions. His works, we are told, were in high repute with supralapsarians.
[Wilson's Dissenting Churches, iv. 426.]
ALLEN, JOHN, jun. (d. 1831), bookseller and antiquary, the son of a Hereford man, who as far back as 1775 was the leading bookseller in the county. Besides attending to an extensive printing and new-book trade, the younger Allen took an active part in local affairs, and brought together the remarkable collection of antiquities, books, manuscripts, maps, and prints relating to Herefordshire, described in his ‘Bibliotheca.’ A history of the county, with which he had made some progress, has never been published. He retired to London about six or seven years before his death, which occurred in 1831.
His printed works are:
- ‘A Translation of the Charter granted to the City of Hereford by King William III, 14 June 1697 [by J. A.],’ Hereford, J. Allen, 1820, sm. 4to, pp. 56.
- ‘Bibliotheca Herefordiensis, or a descriptive catalogue of books, pamphlets, maps, prints, &c., relating to the county of Hereford,’ Hereford, J. Allen, 1821, 8vo, pp. xii, 119. Only twenty-five copies printed on writing-paper and one on vellum, for private distribution, were issued of this work. The titles in this very complete bibliography are supplied in almost every instance from the books themselves. It is arranged under
