ng a Spanish father of English descent
and an English mother, all Catholics, as Blougram says, "There's one
great form of Christian faith I happened to be born in." His mother took
him as an infant, and laid him upon the altar of the Cathedral of
Seville, and consecrated him to the service of the Church.

[Illustration: Cardinal Wiseman]

His father having died when he was a tiny boy, his mother took him and
his brother to England where he was trained at the Catholic college of
Ushaw. From there he went to Rome to study at the English Catholic
College there. Later he became Rector of this College. The sketch of
Wiseman at this period given by his biographer, Wilfred Ward, is most
attractive. "Scattered through his 'Recollections' are interesting
impressions left by his student life. While mastering the regular course
of scholastic philosophy and theology sufficiently to take his degree
with credit, his tastes were not primarily in this direction. The study
of Roman antiquities, Christian and Pagan, was congenial to him, as was
also the study of Italian art--in which he ultimately became
proficient--and of music: and he early devoted himself to the Syriac and
Arabic languages. In all these pursuits the enthusiasm and eminence of
men living in Rome itself at this era of renaissance was a potent
stimulus to work. The hours he set aside for reading were many more than
the rule demanded. But the daily walk and the occasional expedition to
places of historic interest outside of Rome helped also to store his
mind and to fire his imagination." Wiseman writes, himself, of this
period, "The life of the student in Rome should be one of unblended
enjoyment. His very relaxations become at once subsidiary to his work
and yet most delightfully recreative. His daily walks may be through the
field of art ... his wanderings along the stream of time ... a thousand
memories, a thousand associations accompany him." From this letter and
from accounts of him he would seem to have been possessed of a highly
imaginative temperament, possibly more artistic than religious.
Scholars, linguists, or historians, artists or antiquarians interested
him far more than thinkers or theologians. In noting the effects on
Wiseman's character of the thoughts and sights of Rome, "it must be
observed," writes Ward, "that even the action of directly religious
influences brought out his excessive impressionableness. His own inner
life was as vivid a pageant to hi