mayr succeeded in persuading some of the most distinguished leaders to follow his own example. Under such circumstances, and having rivals even among his countrymen, is it to be wondered at that Hofer should have remained three days without striking a decisive blow? Yet this the author urges as a reproach. Our wonder is, that, under such a disadvantage as the open desertion of their cause by Austria, the Tyrolese should have continued to contend; and this must be ascribed principally to the exer-tion of Hofer and his friends. That Hofer hesitated, shews he deliberated, and only chose the alternative of defending his country, as better than submitting to Bavarian cruelties and French licentiousness.

"His appearance was soon known throughout the country, and his presence seemed to inspire the patriots with new courage, so that his army gained strength every day in numbers, as well as spirit and enthusiasm. The name of Hofer was sufficient to rouse those to activity, who still hesitated, and the success which marked the commencement of this second war, confirmed the most sanguine in their hopes and expectations."

In fact, it was after being deserted by the Austrians, and when Hofer was unshackled by Chastellar and Hormayr, that he gained his most splendid victories.

"He became every day more beloved; every victory was attributed to him; and when the army under his command defeated the enemy a second time, in the auspicious neighbourhood of the Isel mountain, he was looked on as a sort of deity; and Hofer's famous battle of the twelfth of August, is mentioned to this day in the Tyrol, with a degree of exultation that it is not easy to describe."

After this, we find him preventing tumult and plunder in Innspruck, and repressing disorders in the south of the Tyrol. He became completely master of the whole country,—he levied taxes, and organized afresh his forces, but preserved all those ancient forms which were so dear to the Tyrolese. Under his directions, his countrymen were everywhere victorious, and bid so fair to be ultimately successful, that some of the Tyrolese, who had deserted at the persuasions of Hormayr, returned and joined Hofer. Deputies were dispatched to England; and nothing, probably, but the prodigious inequality of the contending parties, prevented the Tyrolese from being successful. The peace between Austria and France allowed the latter to employ an immense army against the Tyrol, which did not contain in the whole country, including men, women, and children, more than 700,000 persons*. But the whole of the country was not liberated; some of the other chiefs were jealous of Hofer, and they were all nearly destitute of ammunition. The peasantry

* Liechtenstern Handbuch, der neuesten Geographic des Oesterreichischen Kaiser.

staates.

ħad been nearly the whole summer in arms; there were no funds to support troops; a large French army under Eugene Beauharnois, had entered their country from Austria; an army of Bavarians was marching on Innspruck; and a large force under general Peyri was advancing from the south. Under these circumstances, abandoned by Austria,-forced to evacuate Innspruck, Hofer manifested a disposition to submit, and on the 29th of October, entered into a correspondence for this purpose with General Drouet. He even thought it was impossible to contend with success against Napoleon. Assured of forgiveness and clemency, for having bravely defended his country,-that such an action should be forgiven!-he actually laid down his arms, and the Tyrolese dispersed, on a proclamation from Eugene, offering them all free pardon. A few days afterwards, however, Hofer again appeared in arms, and published an address to his countrymen on November 15th, telling them,

"Were they to surrender, they would soon see all the youths of the Tyrol dragged away from their homes, all their churches and convents destroyed, divine worship abolished, and themselves overwhelmed with eternal misery."

This change in his conduct is the chief reason for the author's reproaching him with "ruinous indecision." Hofer, however, himself states, he had been prevailed on to lay down his arms by men whom he considered as friends to his country, but whom he had found to be traitors, and its enemies. He never had an opportunity of vindicating or explaining this part of his conduct, and we know not what circumstances may have induced him thus to alter his determination. Most probably, however, he had laid down his arms, from an assurance that he and his country were to be spared, and again armed himself, from a conviction that he had been deluded, and that it was better he and the rest of the patriots should die like brave men, with arms in their hands, than like felons on the gallows. He again collected a considerable force, and contended most valiantly against the horde of French, Bavarians, and Italians, who surrounded his native valley of Passeyr. At length resistance became no longer possible.

"Most of the chiefs took advantage of the proffered protection of Beauharnois, and joined a large party of Tyrolese emigrants at Warasdin. But Hofer persisted in his refusal to accompany them, and when they had all deserted him, suddenly disappeared, retiring to a place of concealment in the mountains of his native valley, where he remained for some time undiscovered in spite of the active search that was made after him, and the reward that was offered for his head."

The principal reason, apparently, which Hofer had for not quitting the Tyrol, was an invincible attachment to his native

mountains. Even at this day, when little is left to his widow but painful recollections, when she finds herself, owing to the♦ exertions her husband made for freedom, reduced in her circumstances, she cannot be persuaded to accept the offers which have been made by the Emperor to provide for her elsewhere. In spite also, of present distress, Hofer continued to hope for better days. In the midst of the most adverse circumstances, he looked confidently to futurity, and he chose to remain in his country, ready to take advantage of any favourable change of fortune. "The place of his concealment, in which he remained from the end of November to the end of the month of January following, was a solitary Alpine hut, four leagues distant from his own home, at times inaccessible from the snow which surrounded it; a few faithful adherents supplied him from time to time with the food that was necessary for himself and his family, and more than once he was visited by confidential messengers from the Emperor of Austria, who used every entreaty to make him quit his abode and follow them to Austria, assuring him, at the same time, a safe conduct through the enemy's army. But Hofer steadily refused all their offers, and expressed his determination never to abandon either his country or his family. He adhered tenaciously to all his old attachments and habits, and even resisted the urgent entreaties of his friends, who endeavoured to persuade him to cut off his beard, from an apprehension that it would lead to a discovery of his person. At length the traitor Donay, once his intimate friend, allured by the flattering promises of the French, basely persuaded a man who had been entrusted with the secret, to betray him to Baraguay d'Hilliers, and Captain Renouard of the 44th regiment was appointed to the command of 1600 men to take him prisoner. Besides this force, which appears enormous, when we consider that it was intended merely for the capture of one unfortunate man, who, situated as he was, could not hope to defend himself, 2000 more were ordered to be in readiness to assist them, so fearful were they of some attempt being made to rescue him. The column began their march at midnight, over ice and snow, and at five o'clock in the morning of the 20th of January, Hofer and his family were made prisoners. It was dark when the French approached the hut, but as soon as he heard the officer inquire for him, he came intrepidly forward, and submitted to be bound.-While at Botzen, he requested forgiveness of several persons whom he feared he had offended, but was answered only by their tears; and, having parted with his family, whom he was fated never to see again, he was hurried off under a strong escort to Mantua."-Here he was tried by a court-martial, and condemned to be shot. "He received his sentence of death with the same unshaken firmness that had marked his character throughout, and requested that a priest might be allowed to attend, which was immediately complied with. To this priest, (Manifesti) who never quitted him till the moment of his death, he delivered his last adieu to his family, conversed with him of the Tyrolese war with great eagerness." "In going to the place of execution, he passed by the barracks of Porta Molina in which the Tyrolese were confined; all who were there fell on their knees, put up their prayers, and wept aloud. Those who were at large on the citadel assembled on the road by which he passed, and approaching as near as the escort permitted them, threw themselves on the ground and implored his blessing. This Hofer gave them, and then begged their forgiveness for having been the cause of their present misfortunes, assuring them,

1

at the same time, that he felt confident they would once again return under the dominion of the Emperor Francis, to whom he cried out the last vivat with a clear and steady voice. He delivered to Manifesti, the priest, every thing he possessed, to be distributed among his countrymen; this consisted of 500 florins in Austrian bank notes, his silver snuff-box, and his beautiful rosary; a few moments before his death he also delivered to this faithful attendant his small silver rosary, which he constantly carried about him.— At the place of execution, the broad bastion, at a little distance from the Porta Ceresa, the drummer offered him a white handkerchief to bind his eyes, and told him that it was necessary to kneel down, but Hofer declined the handkerchief, and peremptorily refused to kneel, observing, that he was used to stand upright before his Creator, and in that posture he would deliver up his spirit to him.' He cautioned the corporal to perform his duty well, at the same time presenting him with a piece of twenty kreutzers, and having uttered a few words, by way of farewell, expressive of his unshaken attachment to his native country, he pronounced the word fire with a firm voice. His death, like that of Palm, was not instantaneous, for, on the first fire he sunk only on his knees; a merciful shot, however, at last dispatched him. The spot on which he fell is still considered sacred by his countrymen and companions in arms."—" He was regarded by them as the hero and the saviour of his country. His faults were forgotten in his victories, and his name is never mentioned in the Tyrol at this day without tears of grateful affection and admiration."-A simple tomb has been erected to his memory on the Brenner, (mountain) at short distance from his own habitation; it contains no other inscription than his name, and the dates of his birth and death. The record of his actions is left to be transmitted, as it doubtless will be, to the latest posterity, in the popular stories and rude ballads of the mountaineers, who love and revere his name as a model of disinterested loyalty and devoted attachment to his native land."

Such, therefore, even according to this work, was Andrew Hofer, such his untimely, and, for his enemies,-opprobrious end! Had the force against which he contended been less mighty and overwhelming, and had he been independent of Austria, which, in truth, sacrificed the Tyrol, from political necessity, to a cruel and tyrannical foe, there can be little doubt that he would have saved his country, and been regarded by posterity as another and a greater Tell.

Hofer left a widow with five children, four daughters and one son. She continues to inhabit the same house in which her husband lived, no persuasions or motives of interest having prevailed on her to quit her native valley. Her son was taken to Vienna in 1810, to be under the Emperor's protection. One of her daughters also went to Germany to be educated; another was placed for the same purpose in a convent in the Tyrol; and two remain at home.

ABT. IX-A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, containing, among many surprising and curious matters, the Unutterable Ponderings of Walter the Doubter; the Disastrous Projects of William the Testy; and the Chivalric Achievements of Peter the Headstrong, the three Dutch Governors of New Amsterdam. Being the only authentic history of the Times that ever hath been published. By DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER, (Author of the Sketch Book.) London, John Murray, 1820. Pp. 560. 8vo.

CITIES of themselves-empires of themselves are nothing

without an historian." Such seems to have been the maxim of Mr. Diedrich Knickerbocker, a name not yet ranked with Hume, and Gibbon, and Robertson, very fortunately for those who have an antipathy to Dutch cognominals, but which, we venture to foretel, will be held in esteem, while-copy is honoured among printers, and men have philosophy enough to read-for amusement. What virtue is there required in an historian, that he did not possess?-A love for his subject, which difficulties and toil, so far from repressing, tended rather to animate and confirm-an industry of research, which left not a single scrap of his materials unnumbered—a fidelity, which, after he had explored them with more than microscopic gaze, consigned the unaltered essence of their contents to posterity-and a rigour of justice, before which, all times, events, and personages were regarded-simply as their own merits made them! Such were his qualifications for the first duty of his office, the acquisition of truth. But space would fail us were we to attempt enumerating the next class of his excellencies, those which relate to his manner of disclosing and recording the results of his laborious investigations,-what pains to make generally intelligible, things which originally were understood only by himself-his graphic power in treating of invisibles-the conclusiveness of his reasoning, where marvellous events required corresponding causes to be assigned for them-the facility and felicity with which he combined much adventitious and incidental matter, with the avowed and ostensible topics of his narrative—the exuberance and power of his illustrations and embellishments, where perplexities had to be unfolded, and vulgar matters to be detailed and his familiarity with those tropes and figures which give dignity and interest to the otherwise dull realities of life, as the metaphor and the synecdoche, the litotes, euphemism, catachresis, hyperbole, allegory, prosopopoeia, asyndeton, climax, &c. &c.