PALISSY AND CARDINAL WISEMAN.
On April 28, Cardinal Wiseman, at the Manchester Corn Exchange, delivered a lecture "On the Relation of the Arts of Design to the Arts of Production." It occupies thirteen columns of The Tablet of May 7, which professes to give it "from The Manchester Examiner, with corrections and additions." I have read it with pleasure, and shall preserve it as one of the best discourses on Art ever delivered; but there is a matter of fact, on which I am not so well satisfied. In noticing Bernard Palissy, the cardinal is reported to have said:
"For sixteen years he persevered in this way; and then was crowned with success, and produced the first specimens of coloured and beautiful pottery, such as are to this day sought by the curious; and he received a situation in the king's household, and ended his days in comfort and respectability."
In the review of "Morley's Life of Palissy the Potter," Spectator, Oct. 9, 1852, it is said:
"The period of the great potter's birth is uncertain. Mr. Morley fixes it, on probable data, at 1509; but with a latitude of six years on either side. Palissy died in 1589 in the Bastile, where he had been confined four years as a Hugenot; the king and his other friends could defer his trial, but dared not grant him liberty."
All the accounts which I have read agree with Mr. Morley and the Spectator. Are they or the cardinal right, supposing him to be correctly reported?
H. B. C.
U. U. Club.