ALLESTRY, Richard, D. D. was born at Upping-ton in Shropshire in 1619, and educated in the grammar school of Coventry, and afterwards at Christ Church in Oxford. His natural talents, which were uncommonly vigorous, he carefully improved by an unwearied application to study. Accordingly, his promotion was rapid. First he obtained the degree of bachelor of arts; next he was chosen moderator in philosophy; then made a canon of Christ Church, created doctor of divinity, appointed chaplain in ordinary to the king, and afterwards regius professor of divinity.

But in the early part of life his studies were interrupted, and he was called to military service by hostile occurrences of the times. In the year 1641 he and many other students of Oxford entered the royal service, and gave eminent proofs of their courage and loyal attachment. A short interval of hostilities permitted them to return to their literary pursuits; but a republican party soon after disturbed their repose, and entering Oxford, attempted to plunder the colleges. Having entered the treasury, and finding nothing but fourpence and a halter, they hastened to the deanery, and seizing many valuable articles, they locked them in an apartment, intending next day to carry them along with them. During the night, however, Allestry having a key to that apartment, found means to remove the whole of the articles. Informed that he was the cause of their disappointment, they seized him; and had they not been unexpectedly called off by an order of the earl of Essex, they would have severely wreaked their indignation upon him. In October following he again took up arms, was present at the battle of Keinton-field, and on his way to Oxford to prepare for the reception of the king he was taken prisoner, but soon afterwards released by the king’s forces.

A violent disease which then prevailed in the garrison of Oxford brought Allestry to the brink of the grave; but recovering, he again joined a regiment of volunteers, chiefly consisting of Oxford students. Here he served as a common soldier, and was often seen with the musket in one hand and the book in the other. When the republican party prevailed, he returned at the termination of the war to his favourite studies, but still continued true to that side of politics which he had adopted. This conduct occasioned his expulsion from the college; but he was provided with a comfortable retreat in the families of the honourable Franċis Newport and Sir Anthony Cope.

Such was the confidence reposed in him, that when the friends of Charles II. wθre secretly preparing the way for his restoration, they intrusted him with personal messages to the king. In returning from one of these interviews he was seized at Dover, and upon examination committed a prisoner to Lambeth-house. The earl of Shaftesbury obtained his release in a few weeks. Returning to visit his friends, and among others the learned Dr Hammond, he met his corpse at the gate of his house, carrying to the grave. This deeply affected his mind, and added much to his present distresses. The doctor left him his valuable library, assigning as a reason that “he well knew that his books in his hands would be useful weapons for the defence of that cause he had so vigorously supported.” This valuable library, along with his own, Allestry bequeathed at his death to the university.

During his life he erected at his own private expense the west side of the outward court of Eton College, the grammar school in Christ Church College, and settled several liberal pensions upon individual persons and families. His original biographer gives him the following character. “Memory, fancy, judgment, elocution, great modesty, and no less assurance, a comprehension of things, and a fluency of words; an aptness for the pleasant, and sufficiency for the rugged parts of knowledge; a courage to encounter and an industry to master all things, make up the character of his happy genius. There was not in the world a man of clearer honesty and courage; no temptation could bribe him to do a base thing, or terror affright him from the doing a good one. This made his friendship as lasting and inviolable as his life, without the mean considerations of profit, or sly reserves of craft; without the pageantry of ceremonious address, the cold civility of some, and the servile falseness and obsequious flattery of others.” He left a volume of sermons, printed at Oxford in 1684, from the perusal of which posterity may judge of his literary abilities. Although his lectures gave universal satisfaction, yet he prohibited their publication.

Allestry, Jacob, an English poet of the last century. He was the son of James Allestry, a bookseller of London, who was ruined by the great fire in 1666. Jacob was educated at Westminster School, entered at Christ Church, Oxford, in the act-term 1671, at the age of 18,, and was elected student in 1672. He took the degree of arts; was music reader in 1679, and terrae-filius in 1681; both which offices he executed with great applause, being esteemed a good philologist and poet. He had a chief hand in the verses and pastorals spoken at the theatre at Oxford, 21st May 1681, by Mr William Saville, second son of the marquis of Halifax, and George Cholmondeley, second son of Robert Viscount Kells (both of Christ Church), before James duke of York, his duchess, and the lady Anne; which verses and pastorals were afterwards printed in the Examen Poeticum. He died on the 15th October 1686, and was buried in St Thomas’s churchyard.