The history of the College during the greater part of the eighteenth century coincides with the life of Dr. Theophilus Leigh, who took his Bachelor’s degree from Corpus in 1712, was appointed Master of Balliol fifteen years later, and held his office until 1785. Hearne records the circumstances of his election in a way which implies that he owed his success to an informality, with more than a hint of nepotism on the part of the Visitor.[106] Six years after his death Martin Routh was elected President of Magdalen College. He died in 1855; so that the academical lives of these two men overlapping just at the extremities cover a period of not less than a hundred and forty-six years. In Leigh’s days Balliol was sunk in the heavy and sluggish decrepitude which characterized Oxford at large. The _Terrae Filius_--doubtless an authority to be received with caution--reviles the Fellows for the perpetual fines and sconces with which they burthened the undergraduates;[107] and it is stated that Adam Smith, when a member of the College, was severely reprimanded for reading Hume.[108] It is certain that, at least when Leigh was first a Fellow, the College did not even trust the undergraduates with knives and forks, for these, we are assured, were chained to the table in hall, while the trenchers were made of wood.[109] There was “a laudable custom” which lasted on to a later generation “of the Dean’s Visiting the Undergraduats Chambers at 9 o’ Clock at Night, to see that they kept good hours.”[110]
It was before nine o’clock on the 23rd February 1747-8 that a party was gathered there which led to serious consequences. In spite of the failure of the rebellion of 1745 the zealous ardour of some Jacobite members of the College waxed so warm that they and their guests paraded down the Turl shouting _G--d bless k--g J----s_, until they reached Winter’s coffee-house near the High Street, where Mr. Richard Blacow, a Canon of Windsor, was sitting “in company with several Gentlemen of the University and an Officer in his Regimental Habit,” about seven o’clock in the evening. Mr. Blacow tells us with righteous indignation how he not only heard treasonable and seditious expressions in favour of the exiled family, but also such cries as _d--n K--g G----e_. Being a young Master of Arts and very much on his dignity, he went forth into the street to check the outrage, but was only met by a rough handling on the part of the rioters, who stood shouting in St. Mary Hall Lane in front of Oriel College; so that Mr. Blacow was glad to make good his retreat within the College gate. Reappearing after a while he was on the point of being attacked, when his assailant was carried off by the Proctor. Another, Luxmoore, B.A. of Balliol, took to his heels. After this the loyal Canon sought in vain to induce the Vice-Chancellor to take steps for the trial of the offenders; but he could by no means be prevailed upon. At length, as the scandal spread abroad, the Secretary of State, the Duke of Newcastle, requested Mr. Blacow to lay an information before him; and three members of the University were tried for treason in the King’s Bench. Of the two who belonged to Balliol one, Luxmoore, was acquitted; the other Whitmore, with Dawes of St. Mary Hall,--both undergraduates barely twenty years of age,--were sentenced to a fine, to two years’ imprisonment, to find securities for their good behaviour for seven years, “to walk immediately round Westminster Hall with a libel affixed to their foreheads denoting their crime and sentence, and to ask pardon of the several courts.”[111]