Allen was Robert Allen, a schoolfellow of Lamb and Coleridge, and
Coleridge's first friend. He was born on October 18, 1772. Both Lamb and
Leigh Hunt tell good stories of him at Christ's Hospital, Lamb in _Elia_
and Hunt in his _Autobiography_. From Christ's Hospital he went to
University College, Oxford, and it was he who introduced Coleridge and
Hucks to Southey in 1794. Probably, says Mr. E. H. Coleridge, it was he
who brought Coleridge and John Stoddart (afterwards Sir John, and
Hazlitt's brother-in-law) together. On leaving Oxford he seems to have
gone to Westminster to learn surgery, and in 1797 he was appointed
Deputy-Surgeon to the 2nd Royals, then in Portugal. He married a widow
with children; at some time later took to journalism, as Lamb's
reference in the _Elia_ essay on "Newspapers" tells us; and he died of
apoplexy in 1805.

Coleridge's employment on the _Evidences of Religion_, whatever it may
have been, did not reach print.

Le Grice was Charles Valentine Le Grice (1773-1858), an old Christ's
Hospitaller and Grecian (see Lamb's _Elia_ essays on "Christ's Hospital"
and "Grace before Meat"). Le Grice passed to Trinity College, Cambridge.
He left in 1796 and became tutor to William John Godolphin Nicholls of
Trereife, near Penzance, the only son of a widowed mother. Le Grice was
ordained in 1798 and married Mrs. Nicholls in 1799. Young Nicholls died
in 1815 and Mrs. Le Grice in 1821, when Le Grice became sole owner of
the Trereife property. He was incumbent of St. Mary's, Penzance, for
some years. Le Grice was a witty, rebellious character, but he never
fulfilled the promise of his early days. It has been conjectured that
his skill in punning awakened Lamb's ambition in that direction. Le
Grice saw Lamb next in 1834, at the Bell at Edmonton. His recollections
of Lamb were included by Talfourd in the _Memorials_, and his