The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-16 00:00:00

THE LATE

'ISEMAN.

Born in Seville
Died in London 15th February, 1865

Abroad, but more particularly in all the Catholic
countries, in Italy, in France, in Belgium, and in
Spain especially, the announcement of the death of
Cardinal Wiseman will have been received with
profound regret. His reputation was
,more than
European. He was conspicuous for more than
merely rare abilities. He was endowed with more
than simply a capacious and vigorous intellect. He
was a man of genius. As a great linguist, as a ripe
scholar, as a man of profound learning, Cardinal
Wiseman was a personage of mark and distinction
even in an age when, among the holders of the
same princely dignity, were numbered such giants
of erudition and of philology as Cardinal Mai and
Cardinal Mezzofanti. On the continent, as our
contemporary the Morning Post of to-day re-
marks, and with reason, he was regarded as a
great man. It was only the other day that
one of the very foremost intellects of our age—
allusion being here made to the Rev. John Henry
Newman—took occasion, in his famous Apologia
pro vita sua to speak of Cardinal Wiseman in terms
expressive of the highest admiration and veneration
—words that, coming from a man like Dr. New-
man, were of themselves an enviable panegyric. How
completely Cardinal Wiseman had conquered the
good opinion of his fellow-countrymen and fellow-
citizens, here in England, during the fifteen years
that have elapsed since the formation of the Catho-
lic Hierarchy, of which, since 1850, the deceased
Cardinal was, until yesterday, the head or spiritual
chief as " Archbishop of Westminster," the opi-
nions now being expressed upon all hands
by the journalists of England afford a very
signal and significant indication ! These spon-
taneous and earnest opinions are of them-
selves, in their way, no less distinctly a
panegyric than the notable allusions already
referred to as occurring so very recently in
the pages of " Newman's Apologia." The angry
feelings evidenced in 1850, are, in truth, past and
done with, long ago ! And the fact that it is so is of
itself an attestation of the singular combination in
the late Chief of the Roman Catholic Church in
England—of a dignity and a discretion capable, by
their conciliatory influence in their combination, of
conquering all prejudices, even those that appeared
to be the most rooted and ineradicable. Even in
England, Cardinal Wiseman was a popular man.
Among his co-religionists he was beloved and revered.
But, apart from them, in the midst of the general
public, in assemblages of Protestants and Dissen-
ters, the deceased Cardinal was always of late years
received with the respect due alike to his learning
and to his virtues. It was only a very few yearssince,
upon the occasion of the canonization of the
Japanese Martyrs, that—upon the gathering together,
at Rome, of Catholic Bishops and Archbishops from
the ends of the earth, to the number, hitherto un-
precedented, of 400 wearers of the mitre—Cardi-
nal Wiseman found upon his arrival in the Eternal
City that the chair of the Presidency of the small
and carefully selected inner council or committee,
chosen from among those four hundred bishops,
archbishops, and cardinals, thus gathered together
there at Rome, from all the countries of the world,
had been reserved for himself ! It was even more re-
cently than that, that our leading contemporary the
Times contained, as many may yet remember, a
leading article, in which the probabilities (as
it appeared to them) of Cardinal Wiseman's
elevation to the pontifical throne under the style
and title of Pope Pius X., were seriously discussed.
Incidents—these two last mentioned—clearly indica-
tive of the estimation in which; during his lifetime,
Cardinal Wiseman was held both Abroad and in
England. Now that he has passed away from
amongst us, it is significant of the worth and splen-
dor of his reputation that he should in this manner
be spoken of by the journalism of England, not in
one or two individual instances, not alone by our-
selves, but—as the following extracts will serve to
show—by the whole mass of our contemporaries :-

(From the Times)
We regret to learn that the long illness of his
Eminence Cardinal Wiseman has at length reached
a fatal termination. He died yesterday, at the com-
paratively early age of 62.
Nicholas Wiseman was the son of the late Mr.
, James Wiseman, merchant, of Waterford and of
Seville, in which latter city the late Cardinal was
born on the 2d of August, 1802. The family of
Wiseman is of considerable antiquity, and they ap-
pear to have had lands in the county of Essex since
the reign of Edward IV. Soon afterthe Reformation
Sir John Wiseman, who had been one of the Auditors
of the Exchequer under Henry VIII., and knighted
for his bravery at the Battle of Spurs, acquired by
purchase Much Canfield-park in that county. His
grandson,William, who married into the noble family
of Capel, afterwards Earl of Essex, was created a
baronet by King Charles I. in 1628, and a younger
brother of the second baronet was Lord Bishop of
Dromore. The title has continued in a direct line
of succession down to the present time, and is now
represented by Sir William Saltonstall Wiseman,
eighth baronet, who is a captain in the Royal Navy.
From a younger branch of this family the late Car-
dinal traditionally claimed descent. His Eminence's
mother, whose maiden name was Strange, and
whose family, in spite of large confiscations of their
property under Oliver Cromwell, is still seated at
Aylward's Town Castle, in the county of Kilkenny,
lived to see her son elevated to a Cardinal's hat, and
died full of years in 1851.
Though born upon Spanish soil, young Nicholas
Wiseman, when he was little more than five years
old, was sent to England. He arrived at Ports-
mouth in January, 1808, in the Melpomene frigate,
Captain Parker, and was sent, while still very
young, to a boarding school at Waterford. In
March, 1810, he ;was transferred thence to the
Roman Catholic College of St. Cuthbert, at
Ushaw, near Durham, where he remained until
1818. In that year he obtained leave to quit
Ushaw for Rome, where he arrived in the December
of that year, and became one of the first members
of the English College, then recently founded at
Rome. In the next year he had the honour of
preaching before the then Pope, Pius VII., and,
having pursued with diligence the usual course
of philosophical and theological studies, he
maintained a public disputation on theology, and
was created a Doctor in Divinity July 7, 1824,
shortly before the completion of his 22d year.
In the following Spring he received, holy orders,
and in 1827 was nominated Professor of Oriental
languages in the Roman University, being at that
time Vice-Rector of the English College, to the
rectorship of which he was promoted in the year
1829. He had already distinguished himself, not
merely as a theologian, but also as a scholar, for in
1827 he composed and printed a learned work en-
titled " Hone Syriaca3," chiefly drawn from Oriental
manuscripts in the library of the Vatican.
Dr. Wiseman returned to England in 1835, and
in the winter of that year delivered a series of lec-
tures, during the season of Advent, at the Sardinian
Chapel in Lincoln's-inn-fields. In the lent of the
following year, at the request of the late Bishop
Bramston, then Vicar-Apostolic of the London
District, he delivered at St. Mary's, Moorfields,
another course of lectures, in which he vindicated,
at considerable length, the principal doctrines and
practices of the Roman Catholic Church, and with
such success, that the Roman Catholics of the
metropolis presented him with a gold medal,
commemorative of their gratitude and of their high
regard for his talents and acquirements. These
Lectures were speedily followed by a " Treatise on
the Holy Eucharist," which occasioned a theological ,
controversy with Dr. Turton, the late Bishop of