Place, Portman Square, on 15 Feb. 1865. On Tuesday the 21st the body was conveyed to the pro-cathedral at Moorfields—now (1900) in course of demolition—where Henry Edward Manning, Wiseman's successor in the archbishopric, preached the funeral oration in the presence of the principal catholic ambassadors of Europe and the dignitaries of the catholic church in Great Britain and Ireland. The interment took place in Kensal Green cemetery amid an extraordinary demonstration of public mourning. In 1868 it was resolved to build in Wiseman's memory a catholic cathedral in Westminster. Land was acquired, but building operations were not begun until after Cardinal Vaughan became archbishop of Westminster in 1892. The street at Seville in which Wiseman was born was renamed on his death, by order of the town council, ‘Calle del Cardenal Wiseman.’
Besides the works mentioned and numerous separate sermons, lectures, and pastorals, Wiseman published ‘Essays on Various Subjects,’ chiefly from the ‘Dublin Review’ (1853, 3 vols. 8vo, and with biographical introduction by J. Murphy, 1888), and ‘Sermons on our Lord Jesus Christ,’ Dublin, 1864, 8vo.
Wiseman's reputation was worldwide. He was conspicuous for rare intellect and abilities, for ‘the general justice of his mind,’ for the suavity of his demeanour, and the wide range of his literary and artistic knowledge and sympathies. As a linguist and scholar he was especially distinguished. He was often called the English Mezzofanti. Speaking of his linguistic facility to the present writer, he once said that, if he were allowed to choose his own path westwards, he could talk all the way from the most eastern point of the coast of Asia to the most western point of the coast of Europe. The poet Browning attempted an unfavourable interpretation of Wiseman's character in his ‘Bishop Blougram's Apology’ (first published in Browning's ‘Men and Women,’ 1855); ‘Sylvester Blougram,’ Browning's bishop, was undoubtedly intended for Wiseman, but Blougram's worldly and self-indulgent justification of his successful pursuit of the clerical career in the Roman catholic church, although dramatically most effective, cannot be accepted as a serious description of Wiseman's aims in life or conduct. According to Father Prout, Wiseman in ‘The Rambler’ temperately reviewed ‘Men and Women’ on its publication, and favourably noticed ‘Bishop Blougram's Apology’ as a masterly intellectual achievement, although he regarded it as an assault on the groundworks of religion.
Wiseman was in youth tall, thin, and comely. Macaulay described him in middle age as ‘a ruddy, strapping ecclesiastic,’ in a certain sense resembling the famous master of Trinity, William Whewell [q. v.] Three portraits are reproduced in Mr. Wilfrid Ward's ‘Biography,’ viz. a full-length water-colour picture of him as Monsignor Wiseman; an engraving from the painting by J. R. Herbert; and a photograph taken of the cardinal in 1862. A magnificent gold medal, bearing Wiseman's portrait, was presented to him in 1836, in commemoration of his visit to England when rector of the English College at Rome.
[A full biography of the cardinal was undertaken, on Cardinal Vaughan's selection, by Mr. Wilfrid Ward thirty-two years after the cardinal's death, and was published in 1897 in two volumes. Personal recollections of the writer of the present memoir; Brady's Episcopal Succession, 1877, iii. 369–81; White's Life of Cardinal Wiseman; Lord Houghton's Monographs, 1873, pp. 39–61; Canon Morris's Last Illness of Cardinal Wiseman; Men of the Time, 5th edit. 1862; Ann. Reg. 1865, ii. 217.]
WISEMAN, RICHARD (1622?–1676), surgeon, born in London between 1621 and 1623, was possibly the illegitimate son of Sir Richard Wiseman, bart. (d. 1643), of Thundersley Hall in Essex. About January 1637 he was apprenticed at the Barber-Surgeons' Hall to Richard Smith, surgeon. His master was probably a naval surgeon, for as soon as Wiseman's apprenticeship was ended, but before he was admitted to the freedom of the company, he seems to have entered the Dutch naval service at a time when that nation was engaged in war with Spain. Here he saw much active service, but in 1643, or early in 1644, he joined the royalist army of the west, then under the nominal command of the Prince of Wales. He was present at the surprise of the Weymouth forts on 9 Feb. 1644–5. He remained in Weymouth during the siege, and subsequently seems to have accompanied the troops into Somerset and Cornwall, for he was present at the siege at Taunton, and took part in the fighting of Truro. The army was then under the general command of Lord Hopton, and Wiseman seems to have been especially attached to the guards, for he describes how they were beaten, and how he himself ran away in May 1645. After the rout at Truro, he says that he was the only surgeon who continuously attended Prince Charles from the west of England to Scilly, and afterwards to Jersey, France, Holland, and Scotland. He was at first merely attached to the
