Some fine quarries on Combe Down, from which most of the best houses in Bath were built, having become his property, Allen invented an ingenious contrivance for conveying the huge blocks of stone from the quarries on the hill down to the canal which runs by the city. In his capacity of quarry-owner he amassed still more wealth, became a large employer of labour, and a man of such influence in Bath, that although he was mayor once only (in 1742), he practically guided the affairs of that city as it pleased him best, a circumstance which gave rise to a caricature, long popular at Bath, entitled 'The One-headed Corporation.' It need hardly be added whose head that was. A bust of him in the Drawing-room or Council Chamber of the Guildhall commemorates the year of his mayoralty, and there is also a portrait of him in the Mayor's Room.
Probably his energies as a man of business were exerted in many other directions, which it would now be difficult to trace. But, be this as it may, he now determined on leaving his old residence in the city, situated between York Street and Liliput Alley, and which, I believe, still stands, though obscured by surrounding buildings. The site he chose for his long-planned new residence is one of the finest in the kingdom. It is three or four miles out of Bath, on the south-east side, and stands near the Combe Down quarries, 400 feet above the sea, commanding fine views over many a mile around. Here at Prior Park, originally the seat of an old monastic establishment, which, Leland says, 'belonged to the prior of Bathe,'[7] Ralph Allen determined on building a large and stately mansion, which should enable him to exercise a princely hospitality towards almost every stranger of rank, learning, or distinction who visited 'The Bath.' Hither came, for instance, Thomson and Swift and Gay, Arbuthnot and Pope, Sterne and Smollett, Garrick and Quin; Graves, the author of the 'Spiritual Quixote'; and Charles Yorke, afterwards Solicitor-General—all probably known to Allen through meeting him in the literary circles of London, which Allen frequented when he went to town. Nor was he unvisited by royalty: the Princess Amelia stayed there in 1752, and the Duke of York, 'on his own motion,' as Allen is careful to say, on 26th December, 1761. Here, too, might often be found reckless, delightful, generous Henry Fielding, who avowedly not only drew one phase of his munificent friend's portrait as the somewhat too feeble Squire Allworthy in 'Tom Jones,' and described the mansion at Prior Park in the same novel, but also dedicated to him that other story which Dr. Johnson read with such avidity—'Amelia.' No doubt, too, it is to Allen that Fielding refers in the well-known passage in 'Joseph Andrews,' comparing him to the 'Man of Ross:' 'One Al—Al—— I forget his name.' And Allen's generosity towards Fielding did not end with cheery welcomes to Prior Park and timely loans—should we not rather say gifts?—to the jolly novelist when he was in need of them, for Lawrence tells us that he sent Fielding a present of 200 guineas, in admiration of his genius, before they were personally acquainted; and on Fielding's death Allen took charge of his family, provided for their education, and left £100 a year between them.
Pope,[8] whose acquaintance with Allen dated from 1736, brought Warburton. Sitting one day at dinner, at Prior Park, the poet had a letter handed to him, which he read apparently with some disappointment on finding that he should probably miss an opportunity of meeting his friend. Allen, however, on hearing the cause of Pope's trouble, with characteristic native politeness begged him to ask Warburton to the house—a pleasant task which Pope, who used to say that his host's friendship was 'one of the chief satisfactions of his life,'performed in the following letter, which I insert as giving us a peep at the sort of life led in those days by Allen and his friends, and also as affording us a glimpse of the house itself:
'My third motive of now troubling you is my own proper interest and pleasure. I am here in more leisure than I can possibly enjoy, even in my own house, vacare Literis. It is at this place that your exhortations may be most effectual to make me resume the studies I had almost laid aside by perpetual avocations and dissipations. If it were practicable for you to pass a month or six weeks from home, it is here I could wish to be with you; and if you would attend to the continuation of your own noble work, or unbend to the idle amusement of commenting upon a poet, who has no other merit than that of aiming, by his moral strokes, to merit some regard from such men as advance truth and virtue in a more effectual way; in either case this place and this house would be an inviolable asylum to you from all you would desire to avoid in so public a scene as Bath. The worthy man who is the master of it invites you in the strongest terms, and is one who would treat you with love and veneration, rather than with what the world calls civility and regard. He is sincerer and plainer than almost any man now in this world, antiquis moribus. If the waters of the Bath may be serviceable to your complaints (as I believe from what you have told me of them), no opportunity can ever be better. It is just the best season. We are told the Bishop of Salisbury (Dr. Sherlock) is expected here daily, who, I know, is your friend—at least, though a bishop, is too much a man of learning to be your enemy. You see, I omit nothing to add weight in the balance, in which, however, I will not think myself light, since I have known your partiality. You will want no servant here. Your room will be next to mine, and one man will serve us. Here is a library, and a gallery ninety feet long to walk in, and a coach whenever you would take the air with me. Mr. Allen tells me you might, on horseback, be here in three days. It is less than 100 miles from Newark, the road through Leicester, Stowe-in-the-Wolds, Gloucestershire, and Cirencester, by Lord Bathurst's. I could engage to carry you to London from hence, and I would accommodate my time and journey to your conveniency.'
The long gallery referred to above was a very favourite part of the house with Pope, and here he used to walk up and down in 'a morning dishabille consisting of a dark grey waistcoat, a green dressing-gown, and a blue cap,' as he is represented in the well-known portrait by Hoare.
A pleasant glance at the friendly terms on which the trio used to live at Prior Park is afforded to us in Kilvert's 'Selections from Warburton,' which has for its frontispiece a lithograph from a picture, formerly at Prior Park, of Pope, Allen, and Warburton ('Wit, Worth, and Wisdom'), in a room together. Allen is seated in the centre of the group; on his left is Warburton, bringing into the room a ponderous folio; and, seated at a table at the opposite side of the picture, the little poet is seen writing; in the background, through a window, is disclosed a view of Bath. It is difficult to understand how Pope, after all this friendly intimacy, could quarrel with Allen, and call Warburton 'a sneaking parson.'
Hurd also, successively Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and of Worcester, was a frequent visitor to Prior Park, and after his friendly host's decease commemorated his worth by an inscription (now effaced) on a look-out tower in the park:
'Memoriæ optimi viri, Radulphi Allen, positum,
Qui virtutem veram simplicemque colis, venerare hoc saxum.'
I do not know whether General Wade was ever entertained here by Allen; but that the latter did not forget his early patron he showed by erecting the General's statue in front of the house. Pitt, who sat for Bath, certainly came here, and each held the other in the highest regard. Allen left him £1,000 by his will, as 'the best of friends as well as the most upright and ablest of Ministers that has adorned our country.' Nor did 'the heaven-born Minister' fail to appreciate the Cornishman's virtues, or to extend to others, for his sake, friendly offices; for to Pitt, Warburton (who had married Allen's favourite niece, Gertrude Tucker, a lady to whom he left Prior Park for life) was indebted for his bishopric. At one time, indeed, there was a slight coolness between Pitt and Allen, owing to the introduction of the word 'adequate' into an address from the men of Bath in a memorial to the King, referring to the Peace of 1763. Pitt thought the Peace extremely 'inadequate,' and so much resented the use of the word that he refused to join his colleague, Sir John Seabright, in presenting the memorial; and whilst he vowed he would never again stand for Bath, Allen from that time avowed his intention of withdrawing from all public affairs. In the correspondence which ensued, Ralph Allen magnanimously took upon himself the entire responsibility for the insertion of the obnoxious word; and he adds in a letter to Pitt, which will be found in the Royal Magazine for 1763, that the communication of Pitt's unalterable decision in the matter to the Corporation of Bath was 'the most painful commission he ever received.' That this event, however, did not affect the high regard in which the two held each other is evinced, on the one hand, by the manner in which (as we have seen) Allen expressed himself regarding Pitt, in his will; and on the other by a letter which Pitt wrote during the unfortunate controversy, in which he says:
'I cannot conclude my letter without expressing my sensible concern at Mr. Allen's uneasiness. No incident can make the least change in the honour and love I bear him, or in the justice my heart does to his humane and benevolent virtues.'