THE
ESSEX NATURALIST:
BEING THE
Journal of the Essex field Club.
VOLUME XVII.
MORE ABOUT DR. BENJAMIN ALLEN (1666-1738),
OF BRAINTREE, NATURALIST.
By MILLER CHRISTY, F.L.S.
[WITH PLATE I]
[Read 25th November 1911.]
IN February last, there appeared in these pages a lengthy
account1 by myself of that interesting old Essex natura-
list, Dr. Benjamin Allen, of Braintree, the friend and neighbour
of both John Ray and Samuel Dale, my information having
been derived mainly from a volume of Allen's "Common-place
Book," which was, and still is, in the possession of our member,
the Rev. J. W. Kenworthy.
Among much other matter, I gave2 an extract from Allen's
will, in which he made a special bequest to his descendants
in the terms following :—
" My Note Books or Manuscripts of Medicine and private Methods of
Cure, disclosing much of the Practise of Physick (principally the two
vellum folios numbered One and Two, in letters at length, . . .), as
a separate matter from Goods, I ordain not to be sold, but preserved in
some sufficient hand of one of the Family, in the Practise of Physick or
Pharmacy, under the oversight of my Executors and their Executors,
for the use and benefit of my Family hereafter, to see they be secure from
losing or making away or parting with any way out of their custody; . ."
This shows clearly the very high value Allen set upon the
two books in question.
It was evident that the volume I was describing was one
or other of the "two vellum folios" which Allen thus bequeathed,
although it no longer bore any such inscription as "No. One"
or "No. Two." Consequently, I remarked3 that "it would
1 Essex Nat., xvi., pp. 145-175 (1911).
2 Op. cit., p. 174.
3 Loc. cit.