03971cam a22003373u 4500 77240 UtSlPG 20260610134805.0 m cr n 260607r20251910utu|||||o|||||||||||||| d 10015380 UtSlPG en iso639-1 LF Gribble, Francis Henry, 1862-1946 The romance of the Oxford colleges Salt Lake City, UT : Project Gutenberg, 2025 1 online resource : multiple file formats text txt rdacontent computer c rdamedia online resource cr rdacarrier Release date is 2025-11-15 University College -- Balliol College -- Merton College -- Exeter College -- Oriel College -- Queen's College -- New College -- Lincoln College -- All Souls College -- Magdalen College -- Brasenose College -- Corpus Christi College -- Christ Church -- Trinity College -- Saint John's College -- Jesus College -- Wadham College -- Pembroke College -- Worcester College -- Hertford College -- Keble College -- Epilogue. MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) "The romance of the Oxford colleges" by Francis Henry Gribble is a historical account written in the early 20th century. It offers lively, anecdote-rich sketches of Oxford’s colleges, foregrounding human-interest stories, famous alumni, and traditions rather than dates or architectural detail. Aimed at curious visitors and general readers, it tours each college through memorable episodes that link university life to wider English history. The opening of the book sets out its aim to be neither history nor guidebook but a collection of the stories outsiders most want to hear, then launches into brisk, illustrated chapters. University College begins by dismissing the Alfred the Great legend in favor of William of Durham and moves quickly to Percy Shelley’s notoriety: his “Stinks Man” experiments, alliance with Hogg, impish baby-on-Magdalen-Bridge episode, the provocative pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism, the shop-window scandal, and his expulsion for refusing to answer the dons—framed more as defiant prank than firm atheism. Balliol follows from its penitential founding to Adam Smith’s scathing verdict on slothful eighteenth‑century teaching, Southey’s Pantisocracy dream with Coleridge, rough “rags,” reforms under Parsons and Jenkyns (amid comic anecdotes), and the long central portrait of Jowett—formidable tutor, reformer, talker, and enigmatic churchman whose influence radiated across public life. Merton is shown as the first true corporate college, heroic in the 1354 St Scholastica’s Day riot, gleaming in Elizabethan days under Savile and Bodley, then glittering through the Civil War as the Queen’s residence before sliding into later frivolity and garden scandals, with vignettes of Mandell Creighton and the youthful Lord Randolph Churchill. Exeter appears as the West Country and Whig-leaning college, producing “Parson Jack” Russell the pugilistic parson, Colonel Peard “Garibaldi’s Englishman,” the Protestant-spirited Froude whose Nemesis of Faith was theatrically burnt by Sewell, and, later, Morris and Burne-Jones nurturing pre‑Raphaelite tastes in Oxford (including Morris’s blue‑paint mishap before a Christ Church dinner). The Oriel chapter opens with Adam de Brome’s foundation and the St Mary’s connection, foreshadowing its nineteenth‑century eminence, before the excerpt breaks off. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Originally published: London: Mills & Boon, 1910 University of Oxford https://archive.org/details/romanceofoxfordc00gribuoft https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77240 117960 117960