Allen became chief partner in the lucrative business in Ploughcourt. In addition to attendance on some of the patients in the hospital, whose thankful acknowledgment of his services he regarded as of more value than any fees he might have received, he opened a laboratory in the village of Plaistow. When only twenty-six years of age, he began to lecture on scientific subjects to auditors who were well able to appreciate his enthusiasm. In comparison with its present advancement, chemistry was then in its infancy. It is true that the dreams of Lilly and others had been long since rejected as fabulous and deceptive; nativities were not cast any more by the students of the science; the philosopher's stone was allowed to be a figment of the astrologers and theosophists of the unenlightened past; medicines were certainly no longer the ridiculous and disgusting compounds they had been; ever since the days of Boyle, chemistry had taken a great start, and Black, Crawford, and others had done not a little to advance the science. Availing himself of the researches and discoveries of those who had preceded him, Mr. Allen did much, not merely to increase the accomplished facts of chemistry, but to awaken among seriously-thinking persons a love for the study which unlocks so many of the secrets of nature, and makes man acquainted with the mysteries of his own being. We have been informed by those who heard him lecture at Guy's Hospital, that not only was he most gentle and kindly in his bearing, but also that, while he made use of a perfect scientific terminology, he was peculiarly 'apt to teach;' in the fullest sense, gifted with the art of communicating the results of science.

In the latter part of 1796, Mr. Allen was married, at Tottenham Meeting,' to Mary Hamilton, of Redruth, with whom he was destined to spend a brief, though happy year. Before its close, after giving birth to a daughter, her gentle spirit passed away. It was some consolation to the mourning widower that his daughter survived; but, during long years, he sorrowed with a bitter grief that she, whom he loved with so fond an affection, had left him alone in a world that had little in sympathy with himself in his goodness and his charity. Bereaved by that dispensation of Providence, which was as mysterious as it was mournful, he engaged himself unceasingly in works of benevolence, and in making philosophical experiments; in serving on soup-committees during the inclemency of winter, in attending Cooper's lectures at Guy's, Haighton's Physiology,' and in studying, with an ardour that was all but enthusiastic, natural philosophy, mathematics, botany, and other branches of knowledge. It were difficult to have found any man of his time who studied more variously or successfully; for, although he was

so much engaged by his professional and scientific pursuits, he always had some French and German works in hand.'

But, though his many-sided mind sought various objects of knowledge, and mastered whatever it attempted, William Allen was abundant in his works of charity. With that prescience of results, which is an attribute of great intellect, he was among the first to insist on the application of Jenner's recent discovery; and to this end, he was eager to establish an 'institution for cow-pox innoculation,' in order to check that frightful disease which, in the days of our forefathers, created, on frequent occasions, an alarm such as a cholera-visitation produces among ourselves-a disease which was the peculiar dread of young and old, setting its terrible seal upon charms whose fascination it for ever destroyed. Lecturing, by the invitation of Humphrey Davy, at the Royal Institution; continuing his admirable instruction at Guy's; and labouring incessantly in works of charity; he attained no little reputation with a public who, notwithstanding their proverbial fickleness in the distribution of favours, often recognise and honour true merit. Losing his father and brother in 1805, in the earlier part of the following year he married Charlotte Hanbury, who was worthy to be united to one so earnest in virtue, so constant in charity.

But the noblest efforts of his philanthropy were to be directed to the emancipation of the African slave. For years the merchants of this country had, to a great extent, trafficked in slaves. Vessels were built in London, Liverpool, Bristol, and other English ports, expressly for the transport of negrocaptives to our West India islands, and to the harbours of Cuba and Brazil. Crews selected for their boldness and ferocity, and commanders for their skill and unscrupulousness, were despatched to the bights and gulfs which indent the western shore of the African continent. Treaties, or engagements, were formed with the petty chiefs who ruled in the maritime districts, to furnish slaves whenever the vessels cast anchor near their shores; and by paltry bribes of beads, knives, rum, gunpowder, or rusty muskets, these chiefs, more cruel than their inhospitable land, and whose nobler nature was swallowed up in an insatiable selfishness, bartered their subjects like cattle, only with less consideration for their welfare. Those were days in which the admirable sentiments now happily beginning to have force with the public, were either unknown, or held in scorn. Those were the days of war and wrong. The genius of Pitt ruled the English nation, and the tempest of strife, with intervals of peace few and far between,' was making havoc in some of the fairest scenes of God's beautiful world. Men had not yet begun to believe in the brotherhood of mankind, though gauger

Robert Burns, in woodnotes wild,' had predicted the era when man with man shall brothers be.' In those days, merchants who were esteemed in the city, and almost venerated on 'Change, thought it no disgrace to derive their wealth from this inhuman traffic; though, perhaps, we must in fairness conclude that they were ignorant of all its dreadful details. In the conduct of that cruel and unnatural trade, it sometimes, though rarely, happened that the negroes were captured and shipped under circumstances in which, though there was cruelty, there was an absence of the grosser barbarities by which that trade was rendered a special shame to the English flag. Sometimes, the native chiefs, who were frequently engaged in hostilities with their neighbours, sold their prisoners to the English factor, who quietly embarked them for a transatlantic port. But generally the market was scantily supplied, and then negroes were procured under circumstances of monstrous, and almost incredible cruelty. A boatful of ruffians was landed from the slave-ship at anchor in the bight, who, almost maddened by rum, which on such occasions was given in an unlimited quantity, and ferocious in the prospect of plunder and lust, rowed up the river to the neighbourhood of a negro-village. Under cover of midnight, and with hushed voice and stealthy step, the sailors and their native allies surrounded the village, whose people were buried in sleep. Either they secured these wretched people in their huts, or else, firing the dry leaves of which their roofs were constructed, they made an easy prey of the inhabitants, alarmed at the sudden evil, the roar of the flames, and the shouts of the sailors. The negro-men, amazed and unarmed, were quickly overpowered, and many, in the wantonness of their drunken captors, were often cruelly wounded. The women, when their husbands and brothers had been secured the prey of men who had been many months away from the society of the softer sex-were ravished, often with peculiar aggravations of the crime; the aged hewn down, and the children, if too young to be serviceable, were hurled into their blazing homes, or pierced by the boarding-pike. But all these were only the beginning of horrors. The captives were marched along the river's bank to the depôt, which was conveniently near to the shore. There they underwent the strict scrutiny of the factor, and those who, either by age or by infirmity, were not likely to realize a remunerative sale, were driven out among savages who perhaps were unfriendly to their tribe; or not seldom, we fear, they became running targets for the muskets of the intoxicated sailors. The men and women who were considered gainful, were branded with a red-hot stamp in the shoulder or breast; and then, hungry and wearied, they were rowed off to

the slave-ship. So soon as the captives were carried on board, they were closely stowed away on the slave-deck, the height of which allowed the negroes scarcely space enough to sit upright; and in that fearful prison, the men and women, promiscuously mingled together, were packed as closely as it was possible for them to lie. When the vessel stood out to sea, the sufferings of the wretched captives were fearfully increased. The lurching and rolling of the ship, as she sank or rose from the trough of the sea, hurled them violently against each other, with their wounds still green, the pain from which would be increased by the horrors of sea-sickness among a people who, during their freedom, in most cases, perhaps, had never even beheld the ocean. If it is remembered that each adult requires for his sustenance fifty-seven hogsheads of fresh air during the twenty-four hours, and that these wretched creatures, often five or six hundreds in number, had to exist in a space in which not a tenth of them ought to have remained even for an hour, some faint idea may be conceived of the horrors of the middle passage. Their brutal captors-whose conduct in the result of it always proved the impolicy of cruelty-allowed the miserable negroes but little food, and less water; and this deprivation, in connexion with the foul and pestilential air of their prison, soon converted the slave-ship into a dreadful pest-house. Frequently half the number of slaves shipped perished on the passage. Day by day, the putrefying bodies of the dead were thrown overboard. Shoals of sharks followed the slave-ship on her terrible way, and the carnivorous sea-bird hovered above her mast, watching with eagle eye for the moment when the dead or dying slave was hurled into the deep. But the horrors of the slaver, though the artist and the orator have vied to depict them, will not be fully known till that great day in which it shall be revealed how cruel and how wicked man has been to man.

It was to protest against these horrors that William Allen rose up in righteous indignation, and for the removal of which he resolved to agitate unceasingly. Some Quakers-who, as a sect, have taught the civilized world its noblest lessons, both in philanthropy and religion-so early as 1727 had emancipated their negroes in North America; and twenty-five years later, the Quakers universally had manumitted their slaves. But it was not till 1783 that the first petition was addressed to the English Parliament, praying for the abolition of the trade in slaves. Clarkson and Wilberforce persuaded Mr. Pitt of the inhumanity of the traffic, and he introduced a bill for its suppression into the Lower House. But the merchants of Bristol and Liverpool, supported by the House of Lords, successfully resisted all the efforts of that statesman. At length, in 1807, the

exertions of Clarkson, Wilberforce, William Allen, and others, were completely successful, and the Abolition Act became the law of the land; carried simply by the force of public opinion, although the king, and nearly all his family, were opposed to the

measure.

On the triumphant issue of the agitation for the abolition of the traffic in slaves, William Allen turned his attention to another object, worthy of his benevolent regard-the education of the children of the poor. During the year 1808, he had become acquainted with Joseph Lancaster, to whom we are greatly indebted as a pioneer who removed many of the difficulties which were in the way to the successful establishment of schools. He seems to have been a man of considerable philanthropy, zeal, and even genius, only it would appear from this memoir that the worthy man failed considerably in discretion, as to his monetary arrangements. Lancaster soon became a favourite with the public, and with the highest personages in the realm. George III. heard of his increasing reputation, and gave him an audience at Weymouth, the details of which are peculiarly characteristic of that often well-meaning but narrow-minded monarch :

'On entering the royal presence, the king said, "Lancaster, I have sent for you to give me an account of your system of education, which, I hear, has met with opposition. One master teach five hundred children at the same time! How do you keep them in order, Lancaster?" Lancaster replied, "Please thy majesty, by the same principle thy majesty's army is kept in order-by the word of command.' His majesty replied, "Good, good; it does not require an aged general to give the command; one of younger years can do it." Lancaster observed that in his schools the teaching branch was performed by youths, who acted as monitors. The king assented, and said, "Good." Lancaster then described his system, to which they all paid great attention, and were highly delighted; and as soon as he had finished, his majesty said, "Lancaster, I highly approve of your system, and it is my wish that every poor child in my dominions should be taught to read the Bible; I will do anything you wish, to promote this object." "Please thy majesty," said Lancaster, "if the system meets thy approbation, I can go through the country and lecture on it, and have no doubt but, in a few months, I shall be able to give thy majesty an account where ten thousand poor children are being educated, and some of my youths instructing them." His majesty immediately replied, "Lancaster, I will subscribe 100%. annually;" and addressing the queen, "you shall subscribe 507. Charlotte; and the princesses 257. each; and then added, "Lancaster, you may have the money directly." Lancaster observed, "Please thy majesty, that will be setting thy nobles a good example." The royal party appeared to smile at this observation; but the queen observed to his majesty, "How cruel it is that enemies should be found who endeavour to