Within the university, he served as under-keeper of the Bodleian Library from 1719, trying but failing to become Bodley's Librarian in 1729 and President of Trinity College in 1731.
His final success was to become the first librarian of the Radcliffe Library in 1748 – a sinecure post, since it was an institution that at the outset had "few books and even fewer readers".
He improved the house and garden in Elsfield, and was visited there by the writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson and the poet and critic Thomas Warton in 1754.
[1] Wise worked in areas including as numismatics and Anglo-Saxon studies, attempting the first scholarly edition of Asser's Life of Alfred the Great and endeavouring to sift the genuine medieval text from the later additions.
He also worked with others on publishing an illustrated edition of the Junius manuscript, but the cost of production was prohibitive and the plan was not completed.