into a volume called ‘High Church Claims’ (1841).
In 1846 Pius IX was elected supreme pontiff, and he inaugurated his reign by a general amnesty and a complete reform of the pontifical government. Wiseman visited him in Rome next year. He returned to England as Pio Nono's diplomatic envoy to Viscount Palmerston in the year of revolution (1848). At his instance Lord Palmerston sent Lord Minto to Italy. In the same year Wiseman became pro-vicar-apostolic of the London district, and next year succeeded to the vicariate-apostolic on the death of his superior, Dr. Walsh. Already a re-establishment by the pope of the Roman catholic hierarchy in England was talked of, but events were delayed by reason of the revolutions of 1848. Wiseman sought to prepare the way for the new régime by fusing the old and unchanging with the new and progressive elements in English catholicism. In the spring of 1850 the news came that he was to be made a cardinal. On 6 Aug. he was summoned by the pope to Rome, and there learned quite unexpectedly that the hierarchy in England was to be restored without further delay. On 29 Sept. the pope issued an apostolic letter to that effect, as well as a papal brief elevating Wiseman to the dignity of archbishop of Westminster. Next day, in a private consistory, the new archbishop was created a cardinal, with the title of St. Pudentiana. The announcement of the pope's act was made to English catholics by Wiseman in a published ‘Pastoral appointed to be read … in the Archdiocese of Westminster and the Diocese of Southwark.’ He further explained his new position in ‘Three Lectures on the Catholic Hierarchy, delivered in St. George's, Southwark’ (1850). The news of the pope's action excited throughout the protestants of Great Britain a frenzy of indignation which Wiseman's first pastoral failed to allay. In August 1851 parliament identified itself with the popular outcry against ‘papal aggression,’ and passed into law the ‘ecclesiastical titles bill,’ which prohibited the catholics from assuming the title of bishops under a penalty of 100l. The statute, however, remained a dead letter, and was repealed in 1872. Wiseman issued a powerful ‘appeal to the reason and good feeling’ of the English people, and the antagonism which he, in the capacity of reviver of the Roman catholic hierarchy, had provoked gradually subsided. For fourteen years he ruled the province of Westminster benignly, and lived down the events which marked the inauguration of his archiepiscopate.
Wiseman still found time for literature. In 1854 he published ‘Fabiola, or the Church of the Catacombs,’ a charming story of the third century, which was widely read. The archbishop of Milan wittily said of it that ‘it was the first good book that had had the success of a bad one.’ The book was written as Wiseman slowly journeyed towards Rome during illness. It was popular in Italy, where no fewer than seven translations (one of them by the author) were published. It was translated besides into most of the European languages, and into many of the Asiatic. It has taken its place as a classic of catholicism. In 1858 Wiseman issued another popular work, called ‘Recollections of the last Four Popes’ (Pius VII, Leo XII, Pius VIII, and Gregory XVI). An adverse ‘Answer’ to the book appeared in a volume from the pen of Alessandro Gavazzi in the same year. Soon afterwards Wiseman produced a drama in two acts, called ‘The Hidden Gem,’ written for the jubilee of his old college of St. Cuthbert's. After its publication, in 1858, it was acted in a Liverpool theatre during the following year.
In the autumn of 1858 the cardinal made a public tour through Ireland, where he was received with enthusiasm. A volume of sermons, lectures, and speeches delivered on the occasion appeared in 1859. Meanwhile he gained wide repute as an admirable lecturer on social, artistic, and literary topics. ‘The Highways of Peaceful Commerce have been the Highways of Art,’ a lecture delivered to Liverpool merchants, and a lecture ‘On the Connection between the Arts of Design and the Arts of Production,’ addressed to Manchester artisans, were published in a single volume in 1854. On 30 Jan. 1863 he lectured at the Royal Institution in London on ‘Points of Contact between Science and Art’ (London, 1863, 8vo), and subsequently at the same place on Shakespeare. A fragment of the last lecture, edited by his successor, Cardinal Manning, was published posthumously in 1865 (German transl. Cologne, 1865). A lecture delivered in 1864 at the South Kensington Museum on ‘Prospects of Good Architecture in London,’ and another on ‘Self-Culture’ delivered at Southampton in 1863, were also published soon after their delivery.
In 1855 George Errington [q. v.], a man of iron will, was translated from Plymouth to become coadjutor to the archbishop of Westminster; but Wiseman and his coadjutor were of different temperaments, and the pope in 1862 severed Errington's connection with the Westminster archdiocese.
Wiseman died at his town house, 8 York
