Page:Literary Landmarks of Oxford.djvu/49

 BALLIOL is one of the very oldest of the Colleges of Oxford; and long is the list of distinguished Men of Letters whom it has educated, and who are associated with it.

It dates back to the last half of the Thirteenth Century; and it is said to owe its birth to an act of penance. John de Balliol, its Founder, for some political offence was sentenced to be publicly whipped, at the doors of Durham Cathedral; but he compromised matters by instituting a college at Oxford, for the benefit of needy scholars of Durham; thereby doing a good deed and perpetuating his own name for many generations. Dying, in exile, before the work was completed, his widow, Dame Devorguilla de Balliol, carried out his promises; and she shares with him the honor of the foundation.

If John Wycliffe, one of the earliest of the Balliol Worthies, was, as has been asserted, a member of the ancient family of that name and ilk whom Scott celebrated in "Marmion," he possessed some sort of a collateral connection with these Balliols of Barnard Castle, who are 27