tion, November 5, 1779, but passed his childhood and received his education and early instruction in art at Newport, Boston, and Cambridge. Malbone, the miniature painter, was an early friend and adviser, and the portraits of Pine a valuable influence. After graduating from Harvard in 1800, Allston went to Charleston, S. C., where he began his art career. In 1801 he went with Malbone to London, and became a student of the Royal Academy, which was at that time under the presidency of his fellow countryman, Benjamin West. In 1804 he visited Paris in company with the afterward celebrated painter Vanderlyn. Here, before going to Italy, he studied in the Louvre the masterpieces of the various schools, and showed a decided preference for the rich, glowing color of the Venetians. This influence held more or less through life, and his natural affinity with those masters of color gave him later the sobriquet of "The American Titian," He passed four years in Rome, the companion of Thorwaldsen and Coleridge, studying the great masters and acquiring their dignified and lofty style, for which he was peculiarly fitted by temperament. He returned to America in 1809, married a sister of Dr. William Ellery Channing, and went again to London, where he painted and exhibited with marked success for seven years. Failing in health, he came home in 1818, and settled first in Boston, afterward in Cambridge, where he passed the remainder of his life in comparative seclusion on account of enfeebled health. He attracted to him always a refined and cultivated circle of friends and admirers; for Allston was a man of scholarly tastes, a rare talker, and a writer of much charm. His temperament was nervous and high-strung. His cast of mind was eminently artistic, imaginative, and of a noble tenor. One of the earliest of his important canvases, "The Dead Man Revived." he painted and exhibited in London about 1810. This obtained a prize of 200 guineas, and was soon after purchased by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Then followed a number of historical and imaginative works: "St. Peter Liberated by the Angel," "Uriel in the Sun," for which the British Institution awarded him a gratuity of 150 guineas. In America, after his final return, he painted "The Prophet Jeremiah," now at Yale College, his large unfinished "Belshazzar's Feast," now in Boston, and several smaller works, including "Dante's Beatrice," and "Spalatro's Vision of the Bloody Hand," a powerfully dramatic work. His poem, The Sylphs of the Season, was delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, and subsequently published in London (1813). He wrote also a novel, Monaldi (Boston, 1841). His Lectures on Art appeared after his death. He died at Cambridge, July 9, 1843, and his burial took place by torch-light. For his biography consult the volume on him in Sweetser's "Artist Biographies" (Boston, 1879), and the Life and Letters published by his relative, J. B. Flagg (New York, 1892).
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL. A comedy by Shakespeare, produced in 1601, but probably largely written as early as 1595. It was included in the folio of 1623. The plot is based upon a story in Boccaccio's Decameron, which had been already borrowed in Painter's Palace of Pleasure. Shakespeare, however, added the comic characters of Lafeu, Parolles, and the clown, though without transforming the pathos of the original tale.
ALL-THE-TAL'ENTS MIN'ISTRY. A complimentary designation bestowed by its friends on the English ministry formed by Lord Grenville in 1806. Used in derision by its opponents, it has passed into history as an ironical appellation.
ALLU'VION (Lat. alluvio, a washing upon,
from ad, to + lucre, to wash). The legal term
for land gained from the sea or other waters,
public or private, by the imperceptible relic-
tion of the water boundary or the gradual wash-
ing up of silt and earth, the scientific and pop-
ular term for which is alluvium. Alluvion is an
accretion (q.v. ) to the upland, and becomes part
and parcel of the land to which it is annexed,
and the property of the owner of the latter.
When the change effected by the water is sudden,
or so rapid as to be perceptible from day to day,
as where the line of the seashore is altered by
a storm, or a river suddenly changes its course,
or where the deposit, however gradual, is the
intentional result of artificial causes, it is not
an alluvion or accretion, and the title to the
land so covered or uncovered is not affected.
Thus, if the sea suddenly engulfs a tract of
upland, the land continues to be the property
of its former owner, even though it remain per-
manently submerged. The division of alluvion
between adjoining riparian proprietors, whose
division line, if projected, would cut it, is a
matter of some difficulty. Among several rules which have been adopted, the simplest is that which on private streams prolongs the division line at right angles with the middle line or thread of the stream. As such middle line is the boundary between opposite riparian proprietors, an island formed in the stream belongs to the proprietor on whose side of the line it lies. If this line cuts the island, the latter is divided by the line. Consult: Angell, Treatise on the Law of Watercourses (Boston, 1877); Gould, Treatise on the Law of Waters (Chicago, 1900). See Avulsion; Riparian Rights; Seashore; Water Rights.
ALLU'VIUM (From Lat. ad, to + lucre, to wash). A term applied to the sediment transported by rivers and spread over submerged lowlands during periods of flood. This alluvium sometimes forms "flood plains" bordering rivers, or builds up conical heaps, "alluvial cones," at points where rivers debouch from narrow valleys on to lower areas, or constitutes deltas at river mouths. Alluvial soils are among the most productive known, because of the additional fresh material applied to their surfaces during periods of high water. The flood plains of the Nile, Ganges, and Mississippi are illustrations. See Delta; Flood-Plain; River; Soil.
ALL'WORTH, Lady. In Massinger's play, A New Way to Pay Old Debts (q.v.), a wealthy widow.
ALL'WORTH, Tom. In Massinger's A New Way to Pay Old Debts, the stepson of Lady Allworth, and lover of Margaret Overreach.
ALL'WORTHY, Thomas. The generous squire in Fielding's Tom Jones: foster-father of the hero. He is a philanthropic gentleman, an admirable character, understood to be patterned after Fielding's own benefactor and friend, Ralph Allen (q.v.).
