passage, taken from Children's translation of the first edition of Berzelius on the Blowpipe, London, 1822:—"One person especially, whose name need not be mentioned here, is distinguished both for his skill in the use of this valuable little instrument, for the accuracy of his results, and for the sagacity shown in reaching them. Had he taken the pains to communicate his knowledge to the world, there would have been no occasion for the present work." Unfortunately Wollaston has left no account of his reagents and modes of manipulation. Perhaps, however, a great part of his skill was incommunicable, depending not so much upon peculiar methods as on his remarkable penetration and fertility in resources, and especially on his exquisite acutenesss of eye and delicacy of hand. It is said that he could write with a diamond upon glass in characters so small that to the naked eye of any other person they appeared merely like a ragged line, but when seen through a powerful lens they appeared regular and beautifully distinct. In electrical science Wollaston showed the identity of frictional electricity with galvanism, or as he called it chemical electricity. He opposed the "contact-theory" of galvanism, and even tried to resolve frictional electricity into chemical action. At the time when the electro-decomposition of water first attracted attention Wollaston contrived a galvanic apparatus no larger than a thimble, with which the phenomenon could be satisfactorily exhibited. Among his chemical researches we may notice, besides the above-mentioned method of working platinum, the discovery of palladium and rhodium, with the first account of their properties. He examined the oxalates, and the nature of urinary calculi, several varieties of which he was the first to distinguish. Many other chemical facts first ascertained by him may be found in his numerous papers in the Philosophical Transactions for the first quarter of the present century. Wollaston was shy and reserved almost to eccentricity. His laboratory was as difficult of access as the enchanted palaces of fiction; indeed only a few of his most intimate friends were aware of its locality. To a visitor who importunately requested a sight of his laboratory he showed a tray on which lay a spirit-lamp, a blowpipe, and a few test-tubes. But underneath the oddness and coldness of his exterior lay hid such sterling qualities, as secured him the warmest attachment of all who really knew him.—J. W. S.
WOLSEY, Thomas, Cardinal, the celebrated minister of King Henry VIII., was born in 1471 at Ipswich, being, according to the assertion of many of his contemporaries, the son of a butcher, who wrote his name Robert Wulcy. Wolsey was entered of Magdalen college, Oxford, when very young; and obtained his B.A. degree so early in life as to be called the "boy bachelor." This precocious distinction was followed by a fellowship, and the head-mastership of a school connected with Magdalen college. Among his pupils were three sons of the marquis of Dorset, at whose house the tutor was invited to spend a Christmas vacation. His knowledge, his fine personal appearance, and his insinuating manners ingratiated him with the marquis, who presented him to the living of Lymington in Somersetshire. Wolsey accordingly took orders, and entered on his cure, October 10, 1500, giving up his college appointments. After two years, on the death of Lord Dorset, he quitted Lymington and became chaplain to the Primate-archbishop Deane, at whose death he engaged himself to Sir John Nanfant, a favourite of King Henry VII. Serving this patron well, he was rewarded by the appointment of royal chaplain, the duties of which brought him into frequent communication with the king. "Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading," he had also great capacity for business, and neglected no opportunity of displaying this talent to his money-loving sovereign. He also won the favour of Bishop Fox and Sir Thomas Lovel, the officers of state who stood highest in the favour of the king. Henry resolved to employ his chaplain in a very delicate negotiation relating to his own union with Margaret of Savoy, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian. Wolsey started from Richmond on Sunday after dinner, and with a zealous ardour, which was seconded by fair winds and fleet horses, he reached Bruges, presented his despatches, obtained favourable answers, and reached Richmond again by the following Wednesday night. The king was not more amazed than pleased at this celerity and sacrifice of ease. He bestowed on the sturdy chaplain the wealthy deanery of Lincoln. But before the contemplated marriage could be carried out, the king fell ill and died. Wolsey had now to adapt his pliant faculties to a sovereign of a different strain, and profiting by the intimacy of his former pupil, the marquis of Dorset, with the young king, the chaplain soon showed what a jovial, witty, and accomplished companion he could be. In the first year of the new reign Wolsey was appointed king's almoner, and was sworn of the privy council. Bishop Fox and Lord Surrey, the two most powerful men in the council, found themselves ere long supplanted in the royal favour by their former humble servant. Wolsey gradually acquired entire ascendancy over the king. He knew how to gratify the masculine intellect of Henry by learned discourse, and skilfully to appropriate to himself the transaction of any public business which a king of eighteen might be disposed to lay aside for lighter pursuits. "Master almoner's" influence, and his haughty assertion of it, drove from the council the chief ministers of the late king. Gifts and preferments were showered upon the favourite. He was made canon of Windsor, registrar and chancellor of the order of the garter, reporter of proceedings in the star-chamber, and having obtained a dispensation from the pope, he received in the shape of deaneries, rectories, and prebends, a greater amount of pluralities than any Englishman of his time. In 1512, on the resignation of the duke of Norfolk, Wolsey was made lord-treasurer. In 1513, as commissary-general, he took a leading part in the war with France, and on the capture of Tournay was made bishop of that place. A more certain and profitable episcopal appointment awaited him at home in the see of Lincoln, to which he had hardly been consecrated when the custody of the archbishopric of York was confided to him. He was subsequently elected archbishop of York, and had his appointment confirmed by the pope's bull. To the large income derived from these high posts were added the temporalities of the rich dioceses of Durham and Winchester, and the profits derived from farming the bishoprics of Bath, Worcester, and Hereford, filled by foreigners, who compounded at a considerable sacrifice of revenue for the pleasure of non-residence. He further held the abbey of St. Albans in commendam. In 1515 Pope Leo X. conferred upon Wolsey the dignities of cardinal and legate, while a few months later (22nd December), in the same year, he was raised by the king to the seat of chancellor, at the expense of Archbishop Warham. Wolsey was now at the summit of his power. For nearly fifteen years he administered the affairs of England with great ability and general honesty of purpose. The extraordinary magnificence which he maintained in his style of living, his passion for building great houses, and the necessity of keeping a large body of adherents devoted to him, occasioned a vast expense that had to be defrayed by means which no doubt were questionable. He was haughty and arrogant in his bearing, but such a demeanour was probably his best defence against the pride and jealousy of an aristocracy which he kept down. As a judge, no chancellor ever showed greater impartiality. As an administrator, he earned respect from foreign potentates and from his own countrymen. As a politician he had large views and noble aspirations, which he failed to realize probably because of the original defect in his education, which prevented his reading the signs of the times from any other point of view than that of the Roman ecclesiastic. He saw the need of reformation in the church, and the importance of commencing the work from within; but he delayed the matter too long, and the force of popular feeling swept him away. He had great projects for the renovation of the powerful ecclesiastical system which had lived so long. He supported the divorce of the king from Queen Catherine, as the only way of accomplishing his magnificent schemes. "Armed with this little lever of divorce," says Mr. Froude, "he saw himself in imagination the rebuilder of the catholic faith, and the deliverer of Europe. The king being remarried and the succession settled, he would purge the Church of England, and convert the monasteries into intellectual garrisons of pious and learned men, occupying the land from end to end. The feuds with France should cease for ever; and united in a holy cause the two countries should restore the papacy, put down the German heresies, depose the emperor, and establish in his place some faithful servant of the church; and Europe once more at peace, the hordes of the crescent, which were threatening to settle the quarrels of christians by the extinction of Christianity itself, were to be hurled back once more into barbarism."—(History of England, i., 116.) The horror excited throughout Christendom by the sack of Rome in 1527, gave Wolsey the opportunity of breaking off the alliance which had so long subsisted between England and the emperor.
