Alleghany Mountains, or the Alleghanies, a name sometimes used as synonymous with Appalachians, but also often restricted to the portion of those mountains that traverses the states of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania from south-west to north-east, and consists of a series of parallel ridges for the most part wooded to the summit, and with some fertile valleys between. Their mean elevation is about 2500 feet; but in Virginia they rise to 4473.
Allegheny (al-le-gen′i), a city of the United States, in Pennsylvania, on the River Allegheny, opposite Pittsburg, of which it may be considered virtually to be a suburb, and with which it is connected by six bridges. The principal industries are connected with iron and machinery. Pop. 132,283. Also called Allegheny City.
Alle′giance (from mid-Eng. ligeaunce, formed from liege), according to Blackstone, is "the tie or ligamen which binds the subject to the sovereign in return for that protection which the sovereign affords the subject", or, generally, the obedience which every subject or citizen owes to the Government of his country. It used to be the doctrine of the English law that natural-born subjects owe an allegiance which is intrinsic and perpetual, and which cannot be divested by any act of their own (Nemo potest exuere patriam); but this is no longer the case since the Naturalization Act passed in 1870, A British subject, however, or
a child who has acquired a British domicile by the naturalization of an alien parent, cannot in time of war divest himself of British nationality for the purpose of becoming an enemy alien. Aliens owe a temporary or local allegiance to the Government under which they for the time reside. Usurpers in undisturbed possession of the Crown are entitled to allegiance; and thus treasons against Henry VI were punished in the reign of Edward IV, though the former had, by Act of Parliament, been declared a usurper.
Al′legory, a figurative representation in which the signs (words or forms) signify something besides their literal or direct meaning. In rhetoric, allegory is often but a continued simile. Parables and fables are a species of allegory. Sometimes long works are throughout allegorical, as Spenser's Faerie Queene and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. When an allegory is thus continued it is indispensable to its success that not only the allegorical meaning should be appropriate, but that the story should have an interest of its own in the direct meaning apart from the allegorical significance. Allegories are frequent in the Old Testament, whilst in the New they take the form of parables. One of the best-known allegories in classical literature is the story of the stomach and the members of the body in the speech attributed to Menenius Agrippa by Plutarch and Livy. (Cf. Shakespeare, Coriolanus, i, 1.) Allegory is often made use of in painting and sculpture as well as in literature.
Allegri (a˙l-lā′grē), Gregorio, an Italian composer, born at Rome in 1560 or 1585, died there about 1650; celebrated for his Miserere, a setting of the fifty-first psalm (the fiftieth in the Vulgate), which in the Latin version begins with that word. Allegri's Miserere is annually performed in the Sistine Chapel at Rome.
Allegro (It., a˙l-lā′grō), a musical term expressing a more or less quick rate of movement, or a piece of music or movement in lively time. Allegro moderato, moderately quick; allegro maestoso, quick but with dignity; allegro assai and allegro molto, very quick; allegro con brio or con fuoco, with fire and energy; allegrissimo, with the utmost rapidity.
Allein (al′en), Joseph, English Nonconformist divine; born 1633, died 1668; the author of a popular religious book entitled, An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners, or The Sure Guide to Heaven (1672).
Allein (al′en), Richard, English Nonconformist divine; born in 1611, died 1681; rector for twenty years of Batcombe (Somerset); deprived of his living at the Restoration, and imprisoned for preaching. He wrote, among other things, Vindiciæ Pietatis ('A Vindication of Godliness'), published in 1660, which was condemned to be burned in the royal kitchen.
Alleluia. See Halleluia.