Heresies. He appears to have translated also the sixth book of Optatus, bishop of Milevis in Numidia, against the Donatists; a treatise of Tertullian against heresy; and a discourse of Renatus Benedictus, concerning Composing Discords in Religion. In 1565 he removed to France, and is said to have taught philosophy in the university of Paris in 1569 with great applause, and to have been three times elected procurator in that university. He also visited Italy, and ultimately fixed his residence in Germany, where, in 1576, he was nominated by the pope abbot of a Scotch monastery of the Benedictine order at Ratisbon. He received at this time the degree of D.D. His monastic government has been highly commended for its fidelity and zeal. In 1582 he published a treatise in Latin, entitled "Flagellum Sectariorum," (the Scourge of Sectaries), and a political treatise intended as an answer to Buchanan's celebrated work, De Jure Regni. Winzet closed his long and chequered life in 1592. He was an able, learned, courageous, and honest man, and denounced in most indignant language the simony, sloth, luxury, and licentiousness of the Romish clergy in his day. His works were printed in 1835, in 1 vol. 4to, for the Maitland Club.—J. T.
WIRSUNG, Christopher (in Latin Virsungus), was born at Augsburg in 1500. He studied medicine and theology at the same time, a practice not so common now as it was in the sixteenth century. He afterwards practised the healing art in his native town, where also he held the office of evangelical preacher. He died at Heidelberg in 1571. He was author of a "New Book of Medicine" in German, which was published at Heidelberg in 1568, and reprinted at Neustadt in 1588 and 1597. Wirsung, it may be mentioned, enjoyed the friendship of the learned and celebrated Conrad Gesner.—R. M., A.
WIRSUNG, John George, a surgeon and anatomist, was born at Augsburg, and was of the same family as the preceding. John George Wirsung studied at Padua under Vesling, and distinguished himself by his progress in anatomy. He was the first to demonstrate in man the duct of the pancreas, which has since perpetuated the name of its discoverer. Previous anatomists, however, were acquainted with the existence of the duct in some of the lower animals. Wirsung did not write on the subject of his discovery, but contented himself with publishing in 1642 an engraved figure of the duct, entitled "Ductus cujusdam cum multiplicibus suis ramulis noviter in Pancreate inventis in diversis corporibus humanis." In the following year he was murdered by a Dalmatian physician, whom he had defeated in a public discussion.—F. C. W.
WISE, Francis, a learned English antiquary, the son of a mercer at Oxford, was born there in 1695. He graduated M.A. of Trinity college, Oxford, in 1717, and became assistant in the Bodleian library. He published in 1722 "Asser Menevensis de rebus gestis Alfredi Magni;" in 1750 a "Catalogue of the Coins in the Bodleian Library;" in 1764 "History and Chronology of Fabulous Ages Considered." He died in 1767.—F.
WISEMAN, Nicholas, Cardinal, with the title of St. Pudentiana, was the son of a merchant, and was born at Seville on the 2nd of August, 1802. Sent to England when a child, he was educated chiefly at the Roman catholic college of St. Cuthbert's, Ushaw, near Dublin. At sixteen he proceeded to the English college at Rome, dissolved twenty years before, and then newly revived. Having taken orders in 1825, he was nominated in 1826 vice-rector of the English college, and in 1827 professor of Oriental languages in the Roman university. In 1828 he became rector of the English college, and in the same year appeared a first volume, the only one published, of his "Horæ Syriacæ." In 1835 he revisited England to superintend the publication (1836) of his "Twelve Lectures on the connection between Science and Revealed Religion," originally delivered at Rome. In the same year appeared the first number of the Roman catholic quarterly, the Dublin Review, to which Dr. Wiseman was a frequent contributor. His contributions to it were collected in 1853 as "Essays on various subjects." In 1840 he ceased to be rector of the English college at Rome, and settled permanently in this country, on being appointed coadjutor and assistant to Dr. Walsh, the Roman catholic bishop of Wolverhampton, an office with which was conjoined the presidency of St. Mary's college, Ascott. In 1849—mention of minor promotions being omitted—he became vicar-apostolic of the London district. In 1850 occurred the most prominent event in his biography. He was summoned to Rome, made a cardinal, and nominated, so far as the pope could nominate him, "archbishop of Westminster." The nomination was met by the national protest against this "papal aggression," and by the enactment of the ecclesiastical titles bill. Since then Cardinal Wiseman published several minor works. His chief book of recent date is his "Recollections of the last four Popes, and of Rome in their times," 1858. He died 15th January, 1865.—F. E.
WISHART, George, the Scottish martyr, was the son of a country gentleman, the laird of Pittarrow in Mearns, and was born about the beginning of the sixteenth century. Nothing is known of his early years. He first appears as a teacher of Greek at Montrose; but he was soon obliged to leave the country, in consequence of a threatened prosecution by Hepburn, bishop of Brechin, for instructing his pupils in the Greek Testament. He is next heard of in Bristol, where he became a preacher, and was brought before the ecclesiastical authorities and condemned as a heretic, on account of his denunciations of the worship paid to the Virgin. His confidence in his opinions at this period does not appear to have been strong, for he recanted, and burned a faggot in the church of St. Nicholas. He then went abroad, and spent some time in Germany and Switzerland. On his return he entered Corpus Christi college, Cambridge, where he diligently prosecuted his own studies, and faithfully superintended the studies of others. One of his pupils, Emery Tylney— who has given a graphic portrait of Wishart's appearance and manners, as a "man of tall stature, black-haired, long-bearded, comely of personage, well spoken after his country of Scotland, and courteous, lowly, lovely, glad to teach, and desirous to learn"— bears affectionate testimony to his piety, self-denial, and extraordinary charity and kindness to the poor. In 1543 Wishart returned to his own country, in company with the commissioners who had been sent to conclude the treaty between England and Scotland, and preached with great earnestness and success in Montrose and Dundee, and their neighbourhoods. In consequence of the opposition of the Romish party, he was compelled to withdraw from Dundee, and proceeding to the west country, preached to great multitudes in Ayr, and the other principal towns in that district. Intelligence having reached him that the plague had broken out in Dundee, he immediately returned to that place, and remained there ministering both to the spiritual and temporal necessities of the afflicted, until the pestilence had almost wholly disappeared. He next proceeded to Montrose, and then turning his steps southward, preached in Leith, Inveresk, and Haddington. Knowing well the inveteracy of his enemies, and especially of Cardinal Beaton, whose influence was now paramount in the country. Wishart seems to have had a premonition that his end was not far off; for on leaving Haddington he said to John Knox, who was preparing to accompany him as usual, "Nay, return to your pupils; one is enough at this time for a sacrifice." A few days later, he was arrested at Ormiston house during the night by the earl of Bothwell, who however pledged his honour for the safety of Wishart's person. But the cardinal and queen-dowager prevailed upon the earl to violate his pledge, and to deliver his prisoner into the hands of Beaton, who confined him in the castle of Edinburgh, and a few days later had him transferred to St. Andrews. No time was lost in bringing Wishart to trial, and though the earl of Arran, regent of the kingdom, refused his sanction, the cardinal proceeded with the case on his own authority. Wishart denied the competency of the court before which he was brought (28th February, 1546), and appealed to the lord-governor as supreme authority in the kingdom, but his appeal was disregarded. Eighteen charges were brought against him, relating to the number of the sacraments, auricular confession, extreme unction, prayer to saints, the marriage of priests, and other dogmas of the Romish church; and though he made a vigorous and impressive defence, he was of course found guilty, and condemned to be burned. His execution took place on the following day (March 1st), in front of the castle of St. Andrews; and the cardinal who had previously forbidden by proclamation any person to pray for the heretic, under pain of the severest censures of the church, caused the guns of the castle to be directed towards the scaffold, lest any attempt at rescue should be made. Wishart bore his agonizing sufferings with great fortitude, and died expressing his confident hope of a reward in heaven. There can be little doubt that the public indignation excited by his martyrdom, contributed to hasten both the death of Beaton, and the downfall of popery in Scotland. It has been alleged that Wishart was a party to the plot against the cardinal; but the evidence adduced to prove this assertion is of the most trifling character.—J. T.
