ALLEN, THOMAS, a famous English mathematician, was born at Uttoxeter, in Staffordshire, on the 21st of December 1542. He was admitted scholar of Trinity College, Oxford, on the 4th of June 1561; and in 1567 took his degree of master of arts. In 1580 he quitted his college and fellowship, and retired to Gloucester Hall; where he studied very closely, and became famous for his knowledge in antiquity, philosophy, and mathematics. Having received an invitation from Henry, earl of Northumberland, a great friend and patron of mathematicians, he spent some time at the earl's house, where he became acquainted with those celebrated mathematicians, Thomas Harriot, John Dee, Walter Warner, and Nathaniel Torporley. Robert, earl of Leicester, had a particular esteem for Allen, and would have conferred a bishopric upon him; but his love of solitude and retirement made him decline the offer. His great skill in the mathematics earned him, as was usual in those times, the credit of being a magician; and the sagacious author of a book entitled Leicester's Commonwealth, accuses him of employing
the art of "figuring" to further the earl of Leicester's unlawful designs, and of endeavouring by the black art to bring about a match between him and Queen Elizabeth. Allen was indefatigable in collecting scattered manuscripts relating to history, antiquity, astronomy, philosophy, and mathematics. A considerable part of his collection was bestowed on the Bodleian Library by Sir Kenelm Digby. He published in Latin the second and third books of Claudius Ptolemy of Pelusium, Concerning the Judgment of the Stars, or, as it is commonly called, of the Quadripartite Construction, with an exposition. He wrote also notes on many of Lilly's books, and some on John Bale's work De Scriptoribus M. Britanniae. He died at Gloucester Hall on the 30th September 1632, at the great age of 90.