(1810)
I passed two entire months in Germany, and like the people. On my way
I saw Waterloo, an ugly table for an ugly game. At Innsbruck I entered
the church in which Andreas Hofer is buried. He lies under a plain
slab, on the left, near the door. I admired the magnificent tomb of
bronze, in the center, surmounted by heroes, real and imaginary. They
did not fight, tens against thousands; they did not fight for wives
and children, but for lands and plunder; therefore they are heroes! My
admiration for these works of art was soon satisfied, which perhaps it
would not have been in any other place. Snow, mixt with rain, was
falling, and was blown by the wind upon the tomb of Hofer. I thought
how often he had taken advantage of such weather for his attacks
against the enemies of his country, and I seemed to hear his whistle
in the wind. At the little village of Landro (I feel a whimsical
satisfaction in the likeness of the name to mine), the innkeeper was
the friend of this truly great man--the greatest man that Europe has
produced in our days, excepting his true compeer, Kosciusko. Andreas
Hofer gave him the chain and crucifix he wore three days before his
death. You may imagine this man's enthusiasm, who, because I had said
that Hofer was greater than king or emperor, and had made him a
present of small value, as the companion and friend of that harmless
and irreproachable hero, took this precious relic from his neck and
offered it to me.
By the order of Bonaparte, the companions of Hofer, eighty in number,
were chained, thumb-screwed, and taken out of prison in couples, to
see him shot. He had about him one thousand florins, in paper
currency, which he delivered to his confessor, requesting him to
divide it impartially among his unfortunate countrymen. The confessor,
an Italian who spoke German, kept it, and never gave relief from it to
any of them, most of whom were suffering, not only from privation of
wholesome air, to which, among other privations, they never had been
accustomed, but also from scantiness of nourishment and clothing. Even
in Mantua, where, as in the rest of Italy, sympathy is both weak and
silent, the lowest of the people were indignant at the sight of so
brave a defender of his country led into the public square to expiate
a crime unheard of for many centuries in their nation. When they saw
him walk forth, with unaltered countenance and firm step before them;
when, stopping on the ground which was about to receive his blood,
they heard him with unfaltering voice commend his soul and his country
to the Creator; and, as if still under his own roof (a custom with him
after the evening prayer), implore a blessing for his boys and his
little daughter, and for the mother who had reared them up carefully
and tenderly thus far through the perils of childhood; finally, when
in a lower tone, but earnestly and emphatically, he besought pardon
from the Fount of Mercy for her brother, his betrayer, many smote
their breasts aloud; many, thinking that sorrow was shameful, lowered
their heads and wept; many, knowing that it was dangerous, yet wept
too. The people remained upon the spot an unusual time, and the
French, fearing some commotion, pretended to have received an order
from Bonaparte for the mitigation of the sentence, and publicly
announced it.
Among his many falsehoods, any one of which would have excluded him
forever from the society of men of honor, this is perhaps the basest;
as indeed of all his atrocities the death of Hofer, which he had
ordered long before, and appointed the time and circumstances, is that
which the brave and virtuous will reprobate the most severely. He was
urged by no necessity, he was prompted by no policy; his impatience of
courage in an enemy, his hatred of patriotism and integrity in all, of
which he had no idea himself, and saw no image in those about him,
outstript his blind passion for fame, and left him nothing but power
and celebrity.
The name of Andreas Hofer will be honored by posterity far above any
of the present age, and together with the most glorious of the last,
Washington and Kosciusko. For it rests on the same foundation, and
indeed on a higher basis. In virtue and wisdom their coequal, he
vanquished on several occasions a force greatly superior to his own in
numbers and in discipline, by the courage and confidence he inspired,
and by his brotherly care and anxiety for those who were fighting at
his side. Differently, far differently, ought we to estimate the
squanderers of human blood, and the scorners of human tears. _We_ also
may boast of our great men in a cause as great; for without it they
could not be so. We may look back upon our Blake; whom the prodigies
of a Nelson do not eclipse, nor would he have wished (such was his
generosity) to obscure it. Blake was among the founders of freedom;
Nelson was the vanquisher of its destroyers. Washington was both;
Kosciusko was neither; neither was Hofer. But the aim of all three was
alike; and in the armory of God are suspended the arms the two last of
them bore; suspended for success more signal and for vengeance more
complete.
I am writing this from Venice, which is among cities what Shakespeare
is among men. He will give her immortality by his works, which neither
her patron saint could do, nor her surrounding sea.