t Trafalgar, and acting captain of the fleet during the
battle. Hardy was walking on deck with Nelson when Nelson received the
shot that caused his death. He was made Vice-Admiral in 1837.]

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Born in 1775, died in 1864; educated at Oxford; visited
Paris in 1802; joined the Spaniards at Corunna against the
French in 1808; purchased Llanthony Abbey in 1809; owing to
family troubles, removed to Jersey in 1814; and then to
France and Italy, settling in Florence in 1821, where he
remained until his return to England in 1835; his first
book, a volume of poems, appeared in 1795, and his last,
"Heroic Idyls," in 1863.

I

THE DEATH OF HOFER[20]

(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
d