Page:Literary Landmarks of Oxford.djvu/50

28 supposed to have been near neighbors of his forefathers.

Naturally, as the College has been so often and so thoroughly altered and "done-over" since its foundation, but few traces of the buildings, as Wycliffe knew them, more than six hundred years ago, now remain. The experts believe that the oldest part still existing is the present Reading-Room of the Library, on the left hand side of the Front Quadrangle; but that edifice dates back no farther than to the first quarter of the Fifteenth Century.

Wycliffe became Master of Balliol some time in the middle of the Fourteenth Century, but he remained there only one year.

Whether he came directly from Merton, or whether he had been previously a Fellow of Balliol, is a question which the authorities have never been able to determine; and it is equally uncertain as to whether or not on his return to Oxford he resided at Queen's, at an annual rental of twenty shillings, in the coin of the realm; a statement questioned by Reginald L. Poole, M.A., historian of Balliol, who thinks that there were two John Wycliffes in Oxford at that time. Dr. John Fell, in his lodgings at Christ Church, told Anthony Wood, once, that he considered Wycliffe to have been a great dissembler, a man