HOFFMANN, CHRISTIAN GOTTKIUKD. 



HOFFMANN. FRIEDRICH. 



UM Austrian army wu obliged to evacuate the Tyrol, baring the help- 

 let* insurgents to the mercy of an exasperated enemy. Marshal 

 Lefobvre now invaded the province a second time, and entered it by 

 the road from Saliburg, with an army of 21,000 troop*, whiUt Beau- 

 mont, baring crowed the ridge of Scbnarts with a force 10,000 

 ttrong. threatened Innsbruck from the north. On the 30th of July 

 Innsbruck submitted. A aeries of desperate contest* followed along 

 the line of the Brenner, mostly with doubtful success, but in one the 

 marshal was defeated, when 25 piece* of artillery and a quantity 

 of ammunition fell into the hands of the Tyroleso. Again on the 

 18th of August, Marshal Lefebvre, with an army of 25,000 Bavarian 

 and French soldier*, 2000 of whom wore cavalry, was totally beaten 

 by the Tyroleee army, consisting of 18,000 armed peasants. The 

 battle, which was fought near Innsbruck, is said to have lasted from 

 six in the morning until midnight For the third time the Tyrol 

 was free. 



After this victory, entirely achieved by the peasantry themselves, 

 Hofer became the absolute ruler of the country : coins were struck 

 with his effigy, and proclamations issued in his name. His power 

 however *csrc-ly lasted two months, and became the cause of bis ruin 

 ultimately. Three veteran armies, comprising a force of nearly 

 60,000 French and Bavarian troops, were despatched in October to 

 subdue the exhausted province ; and, unable to make head against 

 them, Hofer was obliged to take refuge in the mountains. Soon after, 

 a price having been set upon his head, a pretended friend (a priest 

 named Douay) wu induced to betray him, January 20th, 1810. 

 After bis arrest he was conveyed to Mantua, and the intelligence 

 having been communicated by telegraph to the French emperor, an 

 order was instantly returned that he must bo tried. This order was 

 a t entence ; and after a court-martial, at which however the majority 

 were averse to a sentence of death, Hofer was condemned to be shot 

 His execution took place on the 20th of February 1810, his whole 

 military career having occupied less than forty weeks. The emperor 

 Francis conferred a handsome pension upon the widow and family 

 of Hofer, and created Hofer's son a noble. The Austrian government 

 also raised a marble statue of heroic size in the cathedral of Inns- 

 bruck, where the body of the patriot was interred ; whilst his own 

 countrymen have commemorated his efforts by raising a small pyramid 

 to mark the spot where ho was taken, 



HOFFMANN, CHRISTIAN GOTTFRIED, was born in 1692 at 

 Lauben, in Upper Lusstia, and studied at Leipzig, where he took his 

 degrees. In 1718 be was made professor of law in that university, 

 and afterwards appointed to the chair of the same faculty at Frankfurt- 

 on-the-Oder. He was also appointed counsellor to the king of Prussia, 

 and member of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin. His principal 

 works are 1, 'Historia Juris Romano-Justiniauei ; ' 2, Specimen 

 Conjecturarum de Origine et Natura Legum Gerinanicarum ; ' 8, 

 ' Introductio in Jurisprudentiam Canonico-Pontificiam ; ' 4, ' Nucleus 

 Legum Imperil et Noviuimarum Pacificationuni ; ' 5, ' Pnenotiones de 

 Oriirine, Progreasu, et Natura Jurisprudentiaa Criminal!* Germanicre ; ' 

 6, ' Novnm Volumen Scriptorum He ruin Germanicarum, in primis ad 

 Lusatiam et vicinas Regiones spectantinm ; ' 7, ' Nova Scriptorum ac 

 Monumentorum, partim Rarissimorum partim Ineditorum Collectio.' 

 This work is a sequel to the preceding. 8, ' Series Rerum per Qerma- 

 niam et in Comitiis a Transactione Passaviensi ad annum 1720 ges- 

 tarum.' He also published in German ' Ausfuhrliche Beschreibung 

 des Ruuisches Reiches,' and ' Gegenwartige Zustand der Finanzen von 

 Frankreich.' Hoffmann's eulogium is contained in the 'Nova Acta 

 Eruditorum ' for May 1736. He died in 1735, with the reputation of 

 one of the first jurists of his time. 



HOFFMANN, ERNST THEODOR WILHELM (or AMADEUS, 

 the name be assumed instead of Wilhelm), was born on the 24th of 

 January 1776, at Konigsberg, in East Prussia. Soon after his birth 

 his father and mother separated, and he was brought up by an uncle, 

 by whom he was induced, against his inclination, which led him to 

 the cultivation of music and drawing, to study the law. From 1798 

 to 1800 he continued to prosecute hi* studies with great diligence in 

 the courts at Qlogau in Silesia and in Berlin, still however pursuing 

 hi* favourite studies at every possible interval. In March 1800 he 

 was appointed assessor to the government of Posen, and thence, 

 through the patronage of General Zastrow, removed to be a judge at 

 Plock in Poland in 1802, and to Warsaw in a similar capacity in 1803. 

 Hoffman was an excellent magistrate, and highly esteemed in Warsaw, 

 but on the entry of the French troops into that town in 1806, he found 

 himself at once without employment, without fortune, and without 

 the prospect of any office in hi* then distracted native country. He 

 determined boldly to make his other acquirements serviceable to his 

 support He possessed remarkable talents : he was a poet, a musician, 

 and an artist, but of an eccentric and hypochondriacal turn of mind, 

 and all be produced partook of that character. His writings were 

 fantastic, his music wild and capricious, his drawings caricature*. He 

 taught music, wrote articles for the ' Allgemeine Musicaliscbo Zeitung ' 

 of Leipzig, and accepted in 1808 the situation of musical director of 

 the theatre at Bamberg. Afterward*, in 1813, he filled the same office 

 to the Dresden theatre till 1815. At Dresden he was a witness of the 

 bombardment of the town when the allies endeavoured to dispossess 

 the French. Here he displayed remarkable coolness, sitting at a 

 window with a companion, and drinking wine. He has left a few 



ketches of these events, which are vivid, but not so full as might be 

 wished from a pen so capable of giving an original picture on a large 

 scale. After the downfal of Napoleon I, and the complete restoration of 

 the Prussian kingdom, he was, upon petition, re-admitted a* judge, 

 and soon afterwards appointed to a seat in the royal justiciary court at 

 Berlin, which he filled with great credit to himself ai a judge till his 

 dentil on the 21lt of July 1822, which took place after an illness of 

 considerable length, that had deprived him of the use of hU limbs, 

 but even under this affliction his fancy continued active, and he dic- 

 tated several pieces, among which one called ' The Recovery ' contains 

 some affecting allusions to his own condition. 



Hoffmann was small and weak of body, but for many years he 

 laboured with extreme ardour, notwithstanding his convivial habits, 

 hi* addiction to the free use of wine and tobacco, and his extreme 

 nervous sensibility, which at times operated so strongly as to approach 

 closely to insanity. Besides his professional acquirements, which 

 were highly estimated by his colleagues, he composed the mu- 

 text of many operas : the first was the music only to Gothe'a ' Scherz, 

 List, und Roche' (Jest, Trick, and Revenge), which was performed at 

 Poeen in 1800. He also produced a number of caricatures, highly 

 popular at the time, of the foreign invaders of his country, and 

 especially of Bonaparte. His first series of tales appeared at Bamberg 

 in 1814, ' Phantasiestucken in Callots Manier.' They were followed 

 by ' Nachtstiicke,' the ' Serapionsbruder,' and the fragment of a novel 

 composed upon his death-bed, called ' The Adversary.' They are all 

 distinguished by a fertile wilduess of imagination, considerable humour, 

 vivid descriptions of the beauties of nature, much insight into the 

 inconsistencies of the human character, and sly sarcasm ; but they 

 also contain several well-drawn and highly natural characters. His 

 works form 12 vols. in 18mo, of which a portion have been translated 

 into French, and many of the single tales have been translated into 

 English ; clever versions of two, ' The Sandman' and 'St Sylvester's 

 Night,' appeared in ' Blackwood's Magazine.' 



HOFFMANN, FRIEDRICH, was born at Halle in Saxony, in 1660, 

 of a family which had been engaged for two centuries in the practice 

 of medicine. After having graduated and received his diploma at 

 Jena, he established himself as a physician at Mindeu in 1632. In 

 1684 he travelled through Holland and England, and on his return 

 was appointed physician to Frederick William, elector of Bradcnburg, 

 and to the garrison at Minden. In 1C88 he removed to Halbentadt, 

 and having gained considerable celebrity both by his successful practice 

 and his writings, he was invited by Frederick II L, elector of Saxony, 

 afterwards king of Prussia, to take the chief professorship of medicine 

 in the University of Halle, which had just been founded. He accepted 

 this appointment in 1693, composed the statutes of the Institution, 

 and retained the professorship with a reputation scarcely inferior to 

 that of his great colleague Stahl, till 1742, the year in which he died. 

 As a practical physician Hoffmann enjoyed a celebrity second only to 

 that of Boerhaave, who was the contemporary professor of medicino 

 at Leyden. As an author Hoffmann was well known and esteemed 

 throughout Europe, and he was admitted a member of the scientific 

 societies of London, Berlin, St. Petersburg, and other cities. He was 

 a most voluminous writer; his collected works form six thick folio 

 volumes, and the titles of bis treatises occupy thirty-eight 4to pages 

 in Mailer's ' Bibliotheca Medicines Practical.' 



Except by general repute Hoffmann's writings however are now 

 little known. He assisted considerably, by the mass of evidence which 

 he collected in his practice, in establishing the doctrines which had 

 been first advanced by Glisson and Van Helmont, and were more 

 philosophically maintained by Stahl, that the phenomena of living 

 bodies are not explicable by the laws of inanimate matter, but depend 

 on the constant action of a peculiar principle of life. This vital prin- 

 ciple, which he believed to emanate from the Deity, was supposed to 

 be accumulated in the brain, whence it was eliminated and conveyed 

 along the nerves to all parts of the body, carrying with it life and 

 energy. He thus ascribed to the nerves a far higher importance than 

 they had been supposed by any (except Glisson) to possess ; and in 

 this he certainly made a great odvanoe.in medical science, by directing 

 attention more pointedly to the intimate relation in which the nervous 

 system stands to all the others, and by referring to its influence many 

 of the phenomena before regarded as direct result* of the agency of 

 the vital principle. 



But the principal reputation which Hoffmann now enjoys is the 

 result of the change which he effected in the doctrines supposed to 

 explain the essential nature of disease. The humoral pathology, 

 which ascribed all diseases primarily to a morbid condition of the 

 fluids, which by their action on the solids produced secondary changes 

 in them, bad prevailed in all tbo schools, and had been almost ineffec- 

 tually opposed by Glisson and Baglivi ; and the only subject of dispute 

 had been whether the primary disorder of the fluids consisted in an 

 alteration of their physical or their chemical properties. But Hoffmann 

 showed that the solids were more often the primary seat of disease 

 than the fluids. He believed that all their disorders were attributable 

 to an alteration from the healthy degree of action, or, as ho called it, 

 tone, which constitutes the natural state of the moving fibres, a term 

 in which he included nearly all the tissues of the body ; if this tone 

 were increased, spasm was said to result; if it were decreased, atony 

 or relaxation was produced ; and these opposite conditions occurring 



