The commander, pleased with the vigilance and loyalty of the young man, immediately honoured him with his favour, and determined to be the guardian of his fortunes. He accordingly procured his succession to the office of Post master, and shortly afterwards married him to his natural daughter, Miss Earl. Thus established, Allen soon rose into affluence. Having submitted an ingenious plan to Government for the multiplication of the Cross-Posts, by which the revenue would gain £6,000 per annum, it was adopted, and a lease at that rent, of the Cross-Posts, granted to the inventor for 21 years. The profits of his tenure may be imagined by his taking another lease for 21 years, at the expiration of the former one, at the annual rent of £20,000.

It was during the latter period that he built the stately mansion of Prior-Park,' and opened those vast quarries on Combe Down, which are to the present day objects of curiosity; bringing down the stone from the place where it was cut, to the river, by the means of a rail-road, or inclined plane, which he ingeniously contrived for the purpose. But though thus actively occupied, he did not omit to cultivate, with unremitting attention, his interests in Bath; and at length acquired such a complete control of the city, as to give occasion to the publication of the ludicrous caricature called the One-headed

Now we shall get an insight into the underlying sagacity and generosity of Allen's character as an employer of labour. The few labourers employed by others before and during Allen's time were underpaid, and received their wages at long and irregular intervals; they lived in huts, and were a very demoralized class of people. Allen changed the whole system; he built cottages on Combe Down for the men, whom he protected in their work from the weather above ground, and from the more serious dangers underground. For his foremen he built a row of very pretty and lofty cottages in Church street (which formed a part of the private bridle road to his mansion) and which are still to be seen. He paid both classes of workmen weekly and liberally, and his system was, willingly or unwillingly, followed by other employers of labour in the building and other trades both in Bath and elsewhere.

1

Corporation; wherein, amid an assembly of figures (intended for the mayor, aldermen, and common council-men, and marked by the appropriate emblems of apothecaries, booksellers, etc.), a single monstrous head is discovered, to which all the others are doing obeisance.

As Mr. Allen's object, however, was to use the Corporation, and not to serve them, he carefully and wisely avoided becoming their representative, and contented himself with pointing out to them whom they should choose for the purpose.' This reign

'Wood came to the city in 1727, at the instigation of Allen, who had already acquired great wealth, and who discovered the genius of the great architect. Without Allen, Wood could have done little; with him, by him, and through him, he could do everything. Allen bad acquired the unworked quarries on Combe Down and elsewhere, as well as those partially worked, except one belonging to Milo Smith, who possessed no capital, no enterprise, and little special knowledge. With his accustomed liberality Allen proposed to "buy him out" on his own terms, but Milo declined, under the conviction that he might achieve success under the shadow of Allen's enterprise. Wood was employed by Allen as his chief adviser, and very soon Combe Down began to yield forth its treasures.

The quarries were worked, not only with energy, but with the skill which Wood possessed, though Allen never gave up his authority in all that related to the administration and conduct of the practical and financial part of his great undertakings. Wood understood, both scientifically and practically, the nature of the stone, and what it was capable of in the great building operations which he contemplated, and which he and his son after him carried out, and Allen adhered to his advice and deferred to his experience.

The aspect of Prior Park has changed. The Pavilion, which is described on p. 219, may be seen in the frontispiece. It was a dignified porte cocher, which served many other purposes. On the site of this structure a chapel, in continuation of what was the stables, now stands, and the substitution of this building for the original structure has greatly altered the aspect of the "grand terrace-like form," as it appeared in Allen's time. The chapel, designed by Mr. Scole, is exceedingly beautiful internally, but we confess, as a mere matter of taste, it has marred the symmetry of the external view.

of influence continued many years; during which time Prior Park was the resort of the wits and literati of the age. Amidst this constellation of geniuses, Pope shone the distinguished star; he had become intimate with Allen from the personal advances of the latter, in consequence of an esteem he had conceived for him on reading the surreptitious edition of his letters in 1734. But the friendship of a wit is not to be depended upon. Pope, who visited much at Prior Park, and found the house so comfortable as to be desirous of being there more, requested Mr. Allen to grant him the mansion at Bathampton, in order that he might bring Martha Blount thither (with whom Pope's connection was somewhat equivocal) during the time of his own residence at Prior Park. This request Allen (whose delicacy was extreme) flatly refused; which so exasperated the little wasp, that he quitted his house in disgust, and never afterwards expressed himself in terms of common civility with respect to his old host and former friend.'

Nay, urged by the malice of Mrs. Blount, he meanly and wickedly carried his resentment beyond the grave, and inserted in his will an order to his executors to pay to Mr. Allen the sum of £150, being the amount (as he apprehended) of the charges Mr. Allen might have been at in entertaining him at Prior Park; adding, that if Mr. Allen would not receive the money, he hoped that he would at least order it to be paid into the fund of the Bath Hospital. Allen was too wise and too good a man to feel resentment at this contemptible instance of impotent revenge; and when complying with the latter part of the deceased poet's wish, and ordering the money to be applied to the charity, he with a smile observed, that "when

'This was generally supposed to have been the cause of Pope's resentment, but it is most doubtful. Indeed, it may be admitted that the late Sir C. Dilke refuted the imputation on Pope's moral character. Allen never divulged the cause of his quarrel with Pope. Indeed, it is probable that there was no cause to divulge, and that it was a mere outbreak of splenetic ill temper on the part of Pope, which, Allen treating with great indifference, the former never forgave,

Mr. Pope was expressing the sum of obligation, he certainly had forgotten to add one more cypher to it." Previously, however, to Pope's disgust at Allen, he had introduced Warburton to him, and by that means laid the foundation of that prelate's future fortune.'

This, indeed, was but a fair return for the assistance which the divine had conferred upon the poet; for when Crousaz attacked the "Essay on Man," and accused its writer of favouring fatalism and rejecting revelation, Warburton voluntarily became the champion of the work; and in the Monthly Review of that time, called "the Republic of Letters" published a series of essays in vindication of it; which were afterwards melted into an exposition, and given to the world in the Bishop of Gloucester's edition of Pope's works. This service Pope never forgot; and repaid it first by recommending Warburton to Mr. Murray, by whose interest he became preacher at Lincoln's Inn. But Warburton, it should seem, was not more indebted for his success with Mr. Allen to Pope's recommendation, than to his own knowledge of the human character. Delicate flattery he knew would be gratifying even to the best regulated mind; and therefore duly poured in the ear of his friend a just and regular proportion of it. Sometimes, indeed, he went a little beyond the mark of adulation; but it was erring on the right

1 It is curious to remark on what trifling accidents the destinies of men frequently depend. This was strikingly exemplified in the fortunes of Warburton. Pope, being one day at dinner with Mr. Allen, had a letter put into his hand by one of the footmen. The poet on reading it shook his head. "What occasions your perplexity?" said Allen. "A Lincolnshire clergyman," said he "to whom I am much obliged, writes me a word that he will be with me in a few days at Twickenham." "If that be all, Mr. Pope, request him to come to us; my carriage shall meet him at Chippenham, and bring him hither." Pope complied with the kind request; and the Lincolnshire clergyman, in consequence of his visit to Prior Park, become bishop of Gloucester, the husband of Mrs. Allen's niece, and an inheritor of a large part of his property!