In the social life of Holland House he was a prominent figure,
and to it, perhaps, he sacrificed his literary powers and acquirements.
He was Warden of Dulwich College (1811-20), and Master (1820-43). Allen
was the author of the article in the 'Edinburgh Review' on Payne
Knight's 'Taste', in which he severely criticized Pindar's Greek, and
which Byron, probably trusting to Hodgson (see 'Letters', vol. i. p.
196, 'note' 1), or possibly misled by similarity of sound (H. Crabb
Robinson's 'Diary', vol. i. p. 277), attributed to "classic Hallam, much
renowned for Greek" ('English Bards, etc.', line 513).]
[Footnote 4: Antonio Magliabecchi (1633-1714) was appointed, in 1673,
Librarian to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, to whom he bequeathed his
immense collection of 30,000 volumes. In Burton's 'Book-hunter' (p. 229)
it is said that Magliabecchi
"could direct you to any book in any part of the world, with the
precision with which the metropolitan policeman directs you to St.
Paul's or Piccadilly. It is of him that the stories are told of
answers to inquiries after books, in these terms: 'There is but one
copy of that book in the world. It is in the Grand Seignior's library
at Constantinople, and is the seventh book in the second shelf on the
right hand as you go in.'"]
[Footnote 5: Byron himself was "likened to Burns," and Sir Walter Scott,
commenting on the comparison in a manuscript note, says,
"Burns, in depth of poetical feeling, in strong shrewd sense to
balance and regulate this, in the 'tact' to make his poetry tell by
connecting it with the stream of public thought and the sentiment of
the age, in 'commanded' wildness of fancy and profligacy or
recklessness as to moral and 'occasionally' as to religious matters,
was much more like Lord Byron than any other person to whom Lord B.
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