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The annals of the College during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are not particularly distinguished. After the Restoration Balliol men seem to have been considerably addicted to malt liquors, and much ale does not conduce to profound study. But modern Balliol men might apply to their own use the words of Dr. Ingram's famous song, "Who fears to speak of '98?" for it was in 1798 that Dr. Parsons became Master of the College, and with his advent began the great days of Balliol.
Parsons, with two other heads of houses, established the Examination system, which has been so much belauded and so much abused. It was soon apparent that Balliol tutors had the knack of equipping men to face the ordeal of "the Schools"; the College speedily came to the front, and its intellectual pre-eminence in Oxford during the nineteenth century is now universally admitted. Men trained at Balliol during this period occupied and still occupy some of the very highest positions in the State. Not to mention the living, whose fame is in the mouths of all men, some of the most prominent names are those of Lords Coleridge, Bowen, and Peel (formerly Speaker of the House of Commons), Sir Robert Morier, and Archbishop Temple. Matthew Arnold and Clough were undergraduates at Balliol with Benjamin Jowett, afterwards its most famous Master; and, to balance the severity of these poets, the lighter Muse of Calverley sojourned for a time within its walls.
The buildings of Balliol, which Mr. Matthison has sketched from four points of view, are extensive, but not conspicuously beautiful. The front towards Broad Street was rebuilt in 1867 by Mr. Waterhouse. Old prints assure us that it had previously a forbidding and almost prison-like aspect. Mr. Matthison calls attention to the fact that this picture shows the spot where the martyrs were burned. The automobile in the foreground may suggest to the thoughtful reader that martyrdom is no longer by fire. The drawing from St. Giles' perhaps conveys a pleasanter impression. The third shews us that part of the College known as "Fisher's Buildings," erected at the cost of a former Fellow in 1769. The fourth drawing is of the Garden Quadrangle with the Chapel on the left (rebuilt in 1856); here the surroundings are more attractive; we are looking on "a grove of Academe," in which vigorous minds may still, as heretofore, grow happily towards their maturity.
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