Cardinal Wiseman in Rome [pp. 117-123]

(Yadinal Wiseman izn Rome
placed him at St. Cuthbert's college,
Ushaw, near Durham. Dr. Lingard
was then vice-president of the college; "and I have retained upon my
memory," wrote the cardinal, nearly
fifty years afterward, "the vivid recollection of specific acts of thoughtful
and delicate kindness, which showed
a tender heart, mindful of its duties
amidst the many harassing occupations
just devolved on him through the
death of the president and his own
literary engagements; for he was reconducting his first great work through
the press. But though he went from
college soon after, and I later left the
country, and saw him not again for
fifteen years, yet there grew up an indirect understanding first, and by degrees a correspondence and an intimacy which continued to the close of
his life."*
It was in the course of the eight
years which he passed at this reverend seat of learning-lineal descendant of the old English college of
Douay-that he determined to become a priest. Here he first began
to manifest that deep affection for the
city of St. Peter which distinguished
him down to the end of his life. "Its
history," he says, " its topography, its
antiquities, had formed the bond of a
little college society devoted to this
queen of cities, while the dream of its
longings had been the hope of one day
seeing what could then only be known
through hearsay tourists and fabulous
plans." But the hope was fulfilled
soon and unexpectedly. In 1818,
Pope Pius VII. restored the English
college at Rome, "after it had been
desolate and uninhabited during almost the period of a generation"
Nicholas Wiseman was one of a band
of young men sent out to colonize it.
lie gives a charming description of
the arrival of the little party at their
Roman home, and the delight and
surprise with which they roamed,
alone and undirected, through the
solemn building, with its wide cor * Recollections of the Last Four Popes. Leo XI.
Chap. vii.
ridors; its neat and cheerful rooms;
its wainscotted refectory, from whose
groined ceiling looked down St. George
and the dragon; its library heaped
with tumultuous piles of unorganized
volumes; its garden, glowing with the
lemon and orange, and presenting to
one's first approach a perspective in
fresco by Pozzi; and, above all, Its
chapel, illuminated from floor to roof
with saints of England and celestial
glories; -or, better still, adjoining the
college, the old roofless church of the
Holy Trinity, where in generations
long past many a pilgrim from the
British Isles had knelt to pray when
the good priests of his nation fed and
lodged him on his visit to the tomb of
the apostles. Pleasant must have
been the meeting, on that December
afternoon in the year 1818, between
these six young men and their appointed rector Dr. Gradwell, who, being absent when they arrived, came home
that evening and found himself at the
head of a college, and his frugal meal
appropriated by the hungry students.
The happiness of that day casts a
glow over the page on which, when he
was an old man, the cardinal recorded
the incidents. On Christmas eve he
was presented, with some of his companions, to the venerable Pius VII.
We can imagine the feelings of awe
with which he approached this saintly
man, released onlly a few years before
from the French capitivity. "There
was the halo of a confessor round the
tiara of Pius that eclipsed all gold
and jewels. Instead of
receiving us, as was customary, seated,
the mild and amiable pontiff rose to
welcome us, and meet us as we approached. He did not allow it to be a
mere presentation, or a visit of ceremony. It was a fatherly reception,
and in the truest sense our inauguration into the duties that awaited us.
..... The friendly and almost national grasp of the hand, after due
homage had been willingly paid, between the head of the Catholic Church,
venerable by his very age, and a youth
who had nothing even to promise;
118'