A EULOGY OF RAY, DALE AND ALLEN. 163
springs within the county. A rewritten edition, published in 1711,
is decidedly improved ; but both Dale's Pharmacologia and this
work of Allen's came at a time that was unfavourable for any
lasting repute. Robert Boyle may have been "the father of
chemistry" as well as "brother to the Earl of Cork" ; but,
before the introduction of quantitative analysis by Black,
Priestley, and Lavoisier, there can hardly be said to have been
any science of chemistry. Allen's treatment of his subject is,
as might be expected, largely medical and, like all the medicine
of that day and for a long time to come, mainly empirical..
It was apparently in the year 1710 that Allen began the
first of the two commonplace-books that have been so fortunately
re-discovered of late, and upon the examination of which Mr.
Christy has mainly based the interesting accounts of their
writer which he has given us. The first of these two volumes
is almost entirely medical, detailing the writer's experiences
classified under diseases ; but contains numerous brief references
to Ray, confused notes of conversations, etc. As to these it
must be remembered that they were written from memory from
five to fifteen years after the naturalist's death. Thus when he
says that Ray spoke of having lived for seven years with Bishop
Wilkins, I think that there must be some mistake. Most of
Ray's life is too completely accounted for to admit of such a
possibility.
The second volume, begun in 1723, is of a more miscellaneous
character, though also largely medical. It contains several
dreams which Allen regarded as warnings, notes on solar eclipses,
the weather, the great storm of 1703, farming, etc., a 20-page
calendar of events in the History of the World from A.D. 69 to
1736, and some 50 pages on insects, including under that com-
prehensive designation the oyster and the Common House
Snail (Helix aspersa), with numerous drawings including nearly
150 Lepidoptera. Among these are the Apollo Butterfly
"taken on the Alps by Mr. Ray," and the Linden Hawk Moth
drawn from a description by Dale.
The last entry in this manuscript volume is dated November
1737, and on the 28th day of the following February Allen died.
In addition to his published works on Mineral Waters, his papers
in the Philosophical Transactions and these two manuscript
volumes, the manuscripts of two other papers, communicated