(Leo),** keeper of the Vatican library, a native of Scio, and a celebrated writer of the 17th century. He was of great service to the gentlemen of Port Royal in the controversy they had with M. Claude touching the belief of the Greeks with regard to the eucharist. No Latin was ever more devoted to the see of Rome, or more inveterate against the Greek schismatics, than Allatius. He never engaged in matrimony, nor was he ever in orders; and Pope Alexander VII. having asked him one day, why he did not enter into orders? he answered, "Because I would be free to marry." The pope rejoined, "If so, why do you not marry?" "Because," replied Allatius, "I would be at liberty to take orders." Thus, as Mr Bayle observes, he passed his whole life, wavering betwixt a parish and a wife; sorry, perhaps, at his death, for having chosen neither of them; when, if he had fixed upon one, he might have repeated his choice for 30 or 40 years.—If we believe John Patricius, Allatius had a very extraordinary pen, with which, and no other, he wrote Greek for 40 years; and we need not be surprized, that, when he lost it, he was so grieved, that he could scarce forbear crying. He published several manuscripts, several translations of Greek authors, and several pieces of his own composing. In his compositions he is thought to show more erudition than judgment; he used also to make frequent digressions Allegiance, from one subject to another. He died at Rome in 1669, aged 83.

**ALLAY.** See Alloy.

**ALLEGATA,** a word anciently subscribed at the bottom of rescripts and constitutions of the emperors; as signata, or testata, was under other instruments.

**ALLEGEAS,** or Allegias, a stuff manufactured in the East-Indies. There are two sorts of them; some are of cotton, and others of several kinds of herbs, which are spun like flax and hemp. Their length and breadth are of eight ells, by five, six, or seven eighths; and of twelve ells, by three-fourths, or five-eighths.

**ALLEGIANCE,** in law, is the tie, or ligamen, which binds the subject to the king, in return for that protection which the king affords the subject. The thing itself, or substantial part of it, is founded in reason and the nature of government; the name and the form are derived to us from our Gothic ancestors. Under the feudal system, every owner of lands held them in subjection to some superior or lord, from whom or from whose ancestors the tenant or vassal had received them; and there was a mutual trust or confidence subsisting between the lord and vassal, that the lord should protect the vassal in the enjoyment of the territory he had granted him; and, on the other hand, that the vassal should be faithful to the lord, and defend him against all his enemies. This obligation on the part of the vassal was called his fedeltas or fealty; and an oath of fealty was required by the feudal law to be taken by all tenants to their landlord, which is couched in almost the same terms as our ancient oath of allegiance; except that, in the usual oath of fealty, there was frequently a favoring or exception of the faith due to a superior lord by name, under whom the landlord himself was perhaps only a tenant or vassal. But when the acknowledgment was made to the absolute superior himself, who was vassal to no man, it was no longer called the oath of fealty, but the oath of allegiance; and therein the tenant swore to bear faith to his sovereign lord, in opposition to all men, without any favoring or exception. Land held by this exalted species of fealty, was called feudum ligium, a liege fee; the vassals homines ligii, or liege men; and the sovereign, their dominus ligius, or liege lord. And when sovereign princes did homage to each other for lands held under their respective sovereignties, a distinction was always made between simple homage, which was only an acknowledgement of tenure; and liege homage, which included the fealty before-mentioned, and the services consequent upon it. In Britain, it becoming a settled principle of tenure, that all lands in the kingdom are holden of the king as their sovereign and lord paramount, no oath but that of fealty could ever be taken to inferior lords; and the oath of allegiance was necessarily confined to the person of the king alone. By an easy analogy, the term of allegiance was soon brought to signify all other engagements which are due from subjects to their princes, as well as those duties which were simply and merely territorial. And the oath of allegiance, as administered in England for upwards of 600 years, contained a promise "to be true and faithful to the king and his heirs, and truth and faith to bear of life and limb and terrae honour, and not to..." know or hear of any ill or damage intended him, without defending him therefrom." But, at the revolution, the terms of this oath being thought perhaps to favour too much the notion of non-resistance, the present form was introduced by the convention parliament, which is more general and indeterminate than the former; the subject only promising "that he will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the king," without mentioning "his heirs," or specifying in the least wherein that allegiance consists. The oath of supremacy is principally calculated as a renunciation of the pope's pretended authority; and the oath of abjuration, introduced in the reign of King William, very amply supplies the loose and general texture of the oath of allegiance; it recognizing the right of his majesty, derived under the act of settlement; engaging to support him to the utmost of the juror's power; promising to disclose all traitorous conspiracies against him; and expressly renouncing any claim of the descendants of the late pretender, in as clear and explicit terms as the English language can furnish. This oath must be taken by all persons in any office, trust, or employment; and may be tendered by two justices of the peace to any person whom they shall suspect of disaffection. And the oath of allegiance may be tendered to all persons above the age of twelve years, whether natives, denizens, or aliens.

But, besides these express engagements, the law also holds that there is an implied, original, and virtual allegiance, owing from every subject to his sovereign, antecedently to any express promise, and although the subject never swore any faith or allegiance in form. Thus Sir Edward Coke very justly observes, that "all subjects are equally bounden to their allegiance as if they had taken the oath; because it is written by the finger of the law in their hearts, and the taking of the corporal oath is but an outward declaration of the same."