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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/37177-8.txt b/37177-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ed82020 --- /dev/null +++ b/37177-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1587 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ludvig Holberg, The Founder of Norwegian +Literature and an Oxford Student, by Simon Christian Hammer + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ludvig Holberg, The Founder of Norwegian Literature and an Oxford Student + +Author: Simon Christian Hammer + +Release Date: August 23, 2011 [EBook #37177] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUDVIG HOLBERG *** + + + + +Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + LUDVIG HOLBERG + + THE FOUNDER OF NORWEGIAN LITERATURE + AND AN OXFORD STUDENT + + BY + + S. C. HAMMER, M.A. + + + OXFORD + B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET + MCMXX + + _Price Two Shillings net_ + + + + + LUDVIG HOLBERG + + THE FOUNDER OF NORWEGIAN LITERATURE + AND AN OXFORD STUDENT + + BY + + S. C. HAMMER, M.A. + + + OXFORD + B.H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET + MCMXX + + + + + [Illustration: LUDVIG HOLBERG] + + + + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE + + +The following lecture was delivered on May 23rd, 1919, at Magdalen +College, Oxford, by invitation of the President, Sir Herbert Warren, and +in the presence, among others, of the Norwegian Minister in London, Mr. +Benjamin Vogt. + +In revising the manuscript I have thought it necessary to enlarge it on +a few points where I had to condense the lecture in order to keep it +within the confines of an hour. I have also added a few supplementary +footnotes and a brief reference to the bulky Holberg literature which +may perhaps prove of interest to Holberg students in England. + +In paying my respectful thanks to the President of Magdalen College and +the distinguished audience for their kind reception I beg to sum up my +feelings in the words of Holberg himself: _Multis sane nominibus +devinctum Oxoniensibus me fateor teneri_. + + S. C. H. + +CHRISTIANIA, NORWAY. + +_December, 1919._ + + + + +LUDVIG HOLBERG + + +MR. PRESIDENT, + + YOUR EXCELLENCY, + + LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, + + +I. + +I propose to speak to you about my countryman, Ludvig Holberg, the most +famous Norwegian student whose name was ever entered on the records of +this University. If this had not been the case, I should hardly have +ventured to ascend this platform, for I feel that here, if anywhere, it +must be an indispensable condition that the subject should match the +place. For just as Oxford is not primarily an institution of education, +but through its traditions, its companionships, its achievements, the +very embodiment of British genius, British chivalry and British +aspirations, so Ludvig Holberg is, indeed, no author in the ordinary +sense of the word. He is the founder of modern Norwegian and Danish +literature, the greatest playwright, the first critical historian, the +most human and most broad-minded moralist and philosopher of two +nations; a man whose constant work was one of educating; who +revolutionised the conception of life in two kingdoms and paved the way +for the intellectual and political liberty of the future. For all this, +as I am going to show you, he is, next to his genius, highly indebted to +England and, above all, to Oxford. To this place he made his way when he +quitted Norway 213 years ago, imbued with a deep and early sympathy for +England; from this place he went to Copenhagen, the joint capital at +that time of Denmark and Norway, enriched by assets of the highest +importance to his life-work. I, therefore, want to thank you for the +opportunity you have given me to pay a joint tribute to Oxford and +Holberg. + +Ludvig Holberg--_Ludovicus Holbergius_, _Norvegus_, as he signed his +name in the Admission Index of the _Bodleian Library_--was born at +Bergen, the present capital of Western Norway, on December 3rd, 1684. +His father, who was a well-known officer in the Norwegian army, died +when Lewis was an infant; his mother, when he was 10 years old. Lewis +who was the youngest of twelve brothers and sisters, six of whom +attained their majority, therefore very early became acquainted with the +sterner aspects of life and grew up a lonely boy, deprived of the tender +care of a parental home. It was at that time the custom in Norway to +give pay to sons of officers and to initiate them at an early age in +military tactics, the salaries they got being used to defray the +expenses of their education. These petty officers were called corporals, +and Lewis was now promptly appointed corporal in the "Upland Regiment," +far away from his native town, in one of the midland districts. + +This was a rather curious beginning for a man so decidedly +anti-militarist as Holberg was throughout his life. In his +autobiography, published in Latin in 1727,[1] he makes fun of the +episode, describing his transformation from a petty officer into a +professor of philosophy as "a sort of Ovidian metamorphosis which might +expose me to the risk of being sent back from my professorial chair to +the camp, if the authorities were disposed to question my +qualifications." + +Notwithstanding this, his appointment as petty officer was to become of +importance to him. As soon as he got his commission he left Bergen for +the midland counties--a remarkable journey at that time, by sea and +land, through a great part of West and Mid Norway--until he finally +arrived at the Fron Vicarage, one of the finest places in the valley of +Gudbrandsdalen and at present one of our most popular tourist districts. +The vicar of Fron, who was his relation on his mother's side, soon +discovered his remarkable abilities, his passion for literature, in +which he had already made some trifling attempts, and last but not +least, his gift for languages. + +The two years which Holberg subsequently spent at Fron have, until a +quite recent date, been practically unnoticed by Holberg students, but +it is easy to see that they form an interesting link in the chain of +events connected with his life. His schooldays at Fron were not pleasant +to him, for the assistant master, who had to take care of the boys, was +rather inferior as a teacher. His Latin was bad, his views narrow and +pedantic, his chief instrument of instruction the birch, of which he +made assiduous application. Holberg, who rather early reacted +instinctively and strongly to all strokes of spontaneousness, very soon +conceived a deep dislike and contempt for these pedagogic methods, and +his power of reflection made its combinations and conclusions. Latin and +pedantry became to a certain extent synonymous notions to him, and it +was to be one of his pleasures as a writer to record and hand over to +derision the whole system of travestied learning which was one of the +characteristic features of his age. + +This was the negative aspect of his sojourn at the Fron Vicarage. Its +positive aspect was the time he spent in the library of the vicarage, +where, among a number of Greek and Latin classics, he also found several +modern foreign books, including some Bibles in English and French, an +English and a French dictionary, a French grammar, and an English +reader, with colloquial sentences--rather a curious collection of books +for a Norwegian inland county towards the end of the seventeenth +century. These books, as far as we know, were the first specimens of +English and French literature which he ever saw, but he was fascinated +by them. They were to him messages from the great marvellous world +hundreds of miles beyond the mountains by which he was surrounded. Do +you wonder that he was longing and dreaming, silent and solitary as he +was by disposition? + +But he was not dreaming only. Being a quick observer of things +surrounding him, we may infer that he was deeply impressed by the +customs and manners of the peasants among whom he lived, their cool, +unobtrusive way of behaving themselves, their sound judgment, their +manual cleverness, their traditions, songs and fairy tales, and last but +not least, their dialect, with its peculiar words and phrases, so +decidedly different from his own Bergen tongue and way of speaking. +Indeed, numerous passages in his works are stamped by obvious +reminiscences from his Fron sojourn. + +After an absence which, in more respects than one, ripened him above his +age, Holberg, in 1698, returned to Bergen, where he resumed his studies +under conditions which did not please him at all. During his absence the +grammar school of the city had been subjected to a thorough reform by an +able manager, who was himself an ardent admirer of the classics. +Accordingly, Latin more than ever became the chief subject of +instruction, the command of the language being laboriously aimed at by +means of disputations which were at once linguistic exercises and a +medium of theological and metaphysical fencing. + +Holberg, who always felt himself alien to subtleties of this kind, was +therefore quite agreeable when very soon after the heavy fire at Bergen +in 1702, which stands out as one of the most remarkable events in the +annals of the city, he was sent to the University of Copenhagen, where +he passed his B.A. examination. He does not seem to have been favourably +impressed in any particular degree either by the capital itself or by +the conditions ruling at the University. Otherwise, in his reminiscences +he would hardly have passed by his life as a student in absolute +silence; on the other hand, Bergen, as she presented herself to him +towards the end of 1702 after he had been away for some seven or eight +months, was certainly no cheery place, being still under the gloom of +the devastations of the fire. He therefore quite naturally availed +himself of the earliest opportunity of getting away. + +The two following years of his life, but for a short stay at Copenhagen, +where he completed his theological studies and attained a high degree, +he spent chiefly "in flogging his pupils and converting Norwegian +boors." This is a humorous expression of his for the way in which he +performed his duties as a tutor to the children of the vicar at +Voss--now one of the best-known districts on the Bergen-Christiania +Railway--and occasionally replaced him in the pulpit. By his own saying +he succeeded decidedly better as a preacher than as a tutor which, by +the way, does not say very much, as he never excelled in either of these +functions. The chief interest connected with his stay at Voss is the +fact that it strengthened his early Fron recollections of the peasants. + +We are entitled to infer from his famous _Description of Bergen_, which +appeared thirty-five years later, that he has taken a special interest +in Voss, and that he has studied the history and the topography of the +district, and we hardly jump at conclusions in assuming that his +popularity with the peasants was due, not to his sermons, but to the +straightforward, unpretending way in which he approached them. He +carried with him from Voss, as he had carried with him from Fron, +favourable impressions of the Norwegian peasantry to the manly qualities +of whom he often returns in his writings. + +In 1704 Holberg set out on the first of the five famous journeys which +he was to undertake to various parts of Europe within the next +twenty-two years. I shall not spend many words on this particular +journey beyond the fact that he visited West Germany and Holland, which +at that time were under the spell of the operations on the Western +Front, for, as you remember, we find ourselves at that time at the +commencement of the Spanish War of Succession. It is sufficient to state +that the journey lasted about a year, and that Holberg, in the meantime, +had many chequered experiences; by way of example, that it is impossible +for a man with literary talents to get on at Amsterdam, where, to use +his own expression, "trade occupies every man's thoughts, where +philosophy is at a discount, and where even men like Grotius and +Salmasius have to give way to shipowners and merchants." He therefore +ultimately had to return to Norway, arriving in an exhausted condition +at Christianssand, where he was assisted by a friend, Mr. Brix, whom he +happened to meet there. This friend kindly recommended Holberg to +several of the principal inhabitants, and he very soon got a reputation +as a teacher, especially in French, although--as he learnt on a later +occasion in Paris--his French was not so perfect as the natives of +Christianssand seemed to think. + +Unfortunately he very soon happened to raise the feminine world of the +town against himself. Full of irony as he was, and "delighted with +everything which had an air of novelty"--as he describes himself--he was +greatly amused one day by coming across an anonymous pamphlet in which +the author endeavoured to prove, by sixty-four arguments, that women +have no soul. He promptly learned the chief arguments by heart, and took +every opportunity "of broaching the paradox and of defending it with an +earnestness proportioned to the zeal or indignation with which it was +opposed." Finally, of course, he had to submit and to renounce his +heresy, after which peace was restored. Holberg, who was very musical, +and played excellently on the flute, was subsequently introduced to some +of the most respected families in the town, where he seems to have been +very much appreciated. It will always be a matter of conjecture whether +he contracted at Christianssand, however temporarily, what has been +styled a "heart rheumatism"; but if so, the ladies of Christianssand +have had their revenge; their descendants may still be proud of the +tribute which Holberg in his auto-biography pays to the accomplishments +of their great-great grandmothers. + +In the spring of 1706 Holberg left Christianssand, embarking for England +at Arendal, the well-known neighbouring town, conspicuous even in those +days for its sea-faring reputation. I may, perhaps, in this connection, +take leave to observe that I am a native of that town, and often, when a +boy, sailing out in my boat to the mouth of the harbour, where it opens +towards the horizon far away, or resting on one of the many islets +during the wonderful nights of the Norwegian summer, waiting for the +early fishing hours at sunrise, I would remind myself that these rocks +and skerries outside of my native town were the last part of Norway on +which Holberg looked back when, under the press of a fair wind, his +swift barque carried him away to England, the fairyland of his westward +dreams. + + Adieu, adieu! my native shore + Fades o'er the water blue; + The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar, + And shrieks the wild sea mew. + +It was Norway's "Childe Harold"--the most solitary figure in our +cultural history--who was taking leave of his country, never to see her +rugged shores and her magnificent inland sceneries again. There was, +indeed, nothing poetical about him, for--as you know--the age was a +decidedly prosaic one, and Holberg, later in life, confessed that up to +the age of 30 "he would yawn when he heard the finest piece of poetry +read to him." Yet, as we can see him from our present vantage ground, he +was at that moment the embodiment of the genius of the Norwegian nation, +which once more, as in the saga period, hoisted its sails for Western +Europe, bold, eager of adventures, fascinated at the very thought of +getting away. + + +II. + +I want to lay stress on the Norwegian origin and education of Holberg, +on his stay among our peasantry in two characteristic parts of the +country, and also on the fact that he was over 21 when he left Norway +for ever. If these things were not indispensable for a fair conception +of his lifework, I should certainly not have dwelt on them. Yet a few +particulars are still wanted to give a finishing touch to his portrait. + +He set out in life with a delicate figure and an extremely youthful +appearance, but in return he was possessed of some solid, staunch +qualities which moulded him into a first-rate character. From his +mother, whose family is still numerously represented in Norway, he had +inherited a sound realism which made him firmly resolved to get a +position in life and to settle down comfortably on a fixed salary. From +his father, of whose family no trace is left among us, he had inherited +what has been called the itinerary element of his nature--his passion +for travelling, initiated by his early Fron journey, his eagerness to +see foreign countries, to stroll about in the big cities, to pass along +the high roads from one country into another, covering extraordinary +distances--an energetic student, a haunter of libraries, always on the +look-out for new books, but above anything else, always and everywhere, +a keen observer of men and things, enriching himself with knowledge from +the fresh, inexhaustible sources of life. + +Besides this, he was a true son of Bergen, the most heterogeneous town +of Norway--a sort of "Noah's Ark," according to his own expression--with +a development of its own which, in the course of centuries, has made the +natives of Bergen differ considerably in views and manners from the rest +of their countrymen. Even in our days these differences still make +themselves felt in some degree. All this you must bear in mind when you +speak about Holberg. The remarkable influence exercised upon him by +Bergen gives the clue to his personality--to his genius as a playwright, +to his liberal views as an historian, to his clear, realistic reasoning +as a philosopher. It is always Bergen, never Copenhagen, which is +uppermost in his mind. + +How excellently this young, highly-gifted Norwegian was prepared for a +thorough appreciation of contemporary England! + +During the forty-six years which had passed since the Restoration of +1660, England--as you will remember--had witnessed a period full of +political and literary activity, but above all, remarkable for its +prodigious advance in the field of science. This progress was, it is +true, a matter of European rather than of English concern, but the +inquiring spirit and the rationalist desire to get to the bottom of +things which were the hallmarks of the age were in no country developed +more strikingly than in England. Latin was still the language in which +scientific works were written, but the Royal Society had already +unfolded its national programme "of bringing all things as near the +mathematical plainness as possible, and of preferring the language of +artisans, countrymen and merchants to that of wits and scholars." + +The extraordinary events of the time also highly appealed to the +receptive mind of Holberg. When he arrived at Oxford in the spring of +1706, in the company of his friend, Mr. Brix, England was in the midst +of the Spanish War of Succession, of which--as we remember--he had got +some experiences on his Dutch journey. During a sojourn of nearly two +years, Holberg was a close observer of everything connected with the +great war. It was not so easy at that time as during the recent +Armageddon to get hold of the historical thread leading up to events and +to explain the facts by way of arguments; but he was impressed by the +dogged determination of the English in their heavy struggle against +Louis XIV., and their unswerving belief in a victorious issue. He +himself never doubted that they would win the war, thanks to their +splendid resources no less than to the very principles for which they +fought. In short, it is the prototype of the world's war by which we are +confronted--the Spirit of the West, the representative of the political +and intellectual liberty of the future struggling against absolutism and +all the reactionary powers of the past. + +As a matter of course, Holberg was a staunch pro-ally, and besides this, +he was also highly interested in the political events of the day. The +Union between England and Scotland which took place during his stay at +Oxford, strikes him as one of the most important acts of statesmanship +in any age--an event of far-reaching consequences--and he never gets +tired of commenting upon it and of subjecting it to new investigations. + +I do not presume to think that I can tell you anything new concerning +the conditions ruling at this University at the commencement of the +eighteenth century, but some brief particulars in connection with +Holberg's stay are of interest and importance for a fair understanding +of the moulding influence of Oxford upon his character and genius. + +Throughout the seventeenth century an increasing number of students from +Denmark and Norway had found their way to Oxford, "the most noble +theatre and emporium to all good sciences," to quote a contemporary +writer. From 1602 to 1683 the famous _Liber Peregrinorum_, or Admission +Index, shows a total of 112 names of Danish and Norwegian origin; during +the next twenty years, up to 1708, their number was 60, of which 46 were +Danes and 14 were Norwegians. These figures are interesting as an +unmistakable proof of the growing intercourse between the Dano-Norwegian +monarchy and England, which by this time had commenced to make itself +decidedly felt in the field of commerce. + +From the commencement of the eighteenth century, London, the famous fire +of which in 1666 had given a great impetus to the small timber ports of +South-Eastern Norway, became a city of growing importance to our +country. During their holidays the Norwegian Oxford students used to +spend their time in London, where there was a numerous colony of Danes +and Norwegians and a constant influx of seamen and merchants, especially +from South Norway. It was not, therefore, altogether by chance that +Holberg arrived in England. He sailed, in fact on the westward current +of the time. + +On their arrival at this University, April 18th, 1706, having covered +their way from Gravesend to London, and from London to Oxford on foot, +Holberg and his friend soon found out that their finances were at so low +an ebb that before they could proceed with their studies they had to +provide for their domestic necessities. Fortunately Oxford was no +particularly expensive place at that time, £40 a year being sufficient +to pull a man through, and Holberg was always very economical, and +understood remarkably well the difficult art of making both ends meet. +Yet their first months at Oxford were passed under very strained +conditions until Mr. Brix succeeded in getting a supply of money from a +banker in London. In the meantime, they had raised the necessary funds +themselves by giving lessons in music and languages, and it is a +characteristic evidence of Holberg's cleverness that, after the +departure of his friend, which took place comparatively soon, he managed +to study at Magdalen College for more than eighteen months, with no +other money than that obtained through his lessons as master of +languages and of the flute. + +The more you try to sound the marvellous authorship of Holberg the more +you feel convinced of the importance of his stay at Oxford. It would +require several lectures to trace the way in which his impressions and +his experiences of Oxford have moulded him as an historian, as a +playwright, as a philosopher and moralist. I can only tell you that he +took with him from this place to Copenhagen and to the Dano-Norwegian +community not only the conviction of his future mission, but practically +the very seeds of what should ripen into one of the richest crops in the +field of literature. If Macaulay had known Holberg he would have had to +give a somewhat different turn to his famous sentence: "France has been +the intermediary between England and Mankind." Holberg visited England +twenty-five years before Voltaire and twenty-four years before +Montesquieu, and brought back first hand views and impressions, sifted +only through the medium of his unbiassed mind. + +To put it briefly, Holberg has been the intermediary between England and +the North. + +At Oxford Holberg planned the work by which he started in literature in +1711: _Introduction to the History of the European Kingdoms_,[2] +containing a remarkable chapter on England and the English from the time +of the Romans down to 1702, with quotations from various authors, among +them Milton, William Camden, and Lord Clarendon. This work, against +which many objections have been raised and, to a certain extent, not +unjustly, nevertheless is stamped by the characteristic features of his +genius, so familiar to all Holberg students--his original way of +thinking, his contempt for all sorts of ostentatious learning blocking +the way by irrelevant facts, his plain language--vigorous, manly, with a +turn of its own--his sound judgment, and perhaps, above all, the +generally fair way in which he arraigns his persons before the tribunal +of history. + +Summing up his impressions and reminiscences twenty years later, Holberg +says in his autobiography: "_I confess that I have many reasons for +considering myself under great obligations to the Oxonians._" + +This is no phrase of politeness. It is the opinion of a man whose +correct and blameless demeanour, no less than his sincerity, his +loyalty, and his intellectual abilities, had won him the appreciation of +his professors and the friendship of his fellow-students. His English +was excellent, and he does not conceal the fact that he is a bit proud +of it. Indeed, it is somewhat of a sacrifice not to indulge in +quotations from Holberg's autobiography--particularly so at the point at +which we find ourselves now--for his description of his stay at Oxford +is highly attractive, not only from a literary but a human point of +view. Altogether his autobiography is a curiously fascinating work, of +which no one will repent making the acquaintance. It ought to reappear +in a modern English translation. + + +III. + +After an interesting decade the importance of which to the development +of Holberg's genius cannot be over-rated we meet him in 1718 as +Professor of Metaphysics in Copenhagen University. After having left +Oxford in 1708 he had--to sum up the period as briefly as +possible--spent his time in studies at home and in travels abroad. He +never revisited England, but he lived and rooted in the English world of +thought, and whether in Germany, in Paris, in Rome, or at Copenhagen, he +studied and reasoned on the basis of his Oxford experiences. His +principal work from this period, _Introduction to the Law of Nature and +of Nations_, although little more than an abridgement of Pufendorf's +great work on the same subject, is interesting as a proof of his +independent views and his patriotic ambitions as an historian. + +It would be an exaggeration unworthy of the reserved way in which +Holberg used to express himself, to say that he owed everything to +England. He was certainly also highly indebted to France. Setting apart +what he owes to Holland, Germany and Italy, I think we may square the +debt by saying that while England moulded his character and gave the +first impetus to his genius as an historian, France chiefly contributed +to the unfolding of his genius as a humorous writer. He is the Molière +of the North and, no doubt, one of the greatest dramatic authors ever +born. + +In 1719 Holberg's genius, which, until then, had kept strictly within +the rules prescribed by his professorship, apparently cool and +indifferent to the outside world, suddenly burst into a fit of laughter +which resounded through the North. This was his immortal heroic poem, +_Peder Paars_, which appeared in the autumn of 1719, and which marks +nothing less than a new era in Norwegian and Danish literature. + +_Peder Paars_, like Ibsen's _Peer Gynt_, the only parallel in our +literature, is written in verse. Ibsen's rhymes are stamped by his +mastership of form, and move in shifting stanzas according to the +requirements of the situation and the emotion they are intended to +create. Holberg walks throughout his poem on the high-heeled +Alexandrines of the age. _Peer Gynt_ is the embodiment of the Norwegian +soul--Norway, as seen from within. _Peder Paars_ is the central gallery +of contemporary Denmark, with all its queer figures--Denmark, as seen +from without. That is why Holberg could never have written _Peder Paars_ +if he had been born and bred a Dane. He had to be an outsider to get the +right perspective. + +The gist of the poem is quickly told. Peder Paars, a plain Danish +citizen of a provincial town, wants to visit his sweetheart at some +other provincial town a few miles off. He has to go by sea, of course, +for Denmark, as you know, is pre-eminently a country composed of isles, +and, like Odysseus and Aeneas, he has some mighty enemies among the +immortal gods who will not allow him to complete his very reasonable +journey. He is shipwrecked and washed ashore with his followers on +Anholt, the very smallest of all Danish isles. His experiences in this +place form the chief part of the poem, for in this little, +out-of-the-way island Holberg gives us, as it were, contemporary Denmark +in a nutshell. Finally, the goddess of love pities him; he succeeds in +making his escape from Anholt, and arrives subsequently at Jutland, +where he has another series of remarkable experiences. Like Peer Gynt, +he is put into a mad-house, but some time afterwards he is released and +is escorted in triumph out of town. The last glimpse we get of him is +where he is made a soldier and has to strip himself of all he is +possessed of in order to be set free and become a civilian again. Here +the poem ends abruptly, unfinished, as if the author has got tired; but +the torso stands out as the work of a genius, and for two centuries it +has stood the test of time and towers still as one of the most imposing +works of fiction in Northern literature. + +Holberg had a double purpose with _Peder Paars_. By the form he chose he +intended to aim a decisive blow at the learned apparatus of classic +poetry as we meet it, especially in Homer and Virgil. There was at that +time a lively discussion going on in England and France as to whether +classic or modern poetry ought to be preferred, and both views had their +eager advocates and opponents. Holberg, as you may easily imagine, sided +with the defenders of modern literature, partly because, being a true +son of the age to which he belonged, he was as indifferent to the fresh +originality of Homer as he was untouched by the high-sounding imitation +of Virgil, and in his poem he mixes them up in a most disrespectful way. + +What is considerably more important to us than the form of his poem is, +however, the substance of it. The former belongs to the taste of an age +which has disappeared long ago; the latter is--as I have already +suggested--a cultural portrait of contemporary Denmark, and at the same +time a marvellous gallery full of human characters, stamped by the +eternal mark of life itself. Holberg, like Hamlet, was of opinion that +there was "something rotten in the state of Denmark," and he made up his +mind to set her right by the sound cure of irony. He could have chosen +no better remedy; for, in fact, the community in which he found himself +was not disgraced by vices which preyed on the very pith of the nation +and endangered its future. The chief fault with it was that owing to a +development which forms a highly-interesting chapter in the cultural +history of the country--but which it would take too long to +detail--Denmark, as Holberg found her two centuries ago, was about to be +stifled by an atmosphere of pedantry, humbug, hypocrisy and unsound +ambition. Surrounded by laws and orders in council which interfered with +their daily life in the most foolish way and increased the number of +misdemeanants, the Danish people was about to lose its self-respect and +absorb itself in an indiscriminate imitation of foreign nations. +Holberg's keen glance pierced through all this foolery into the very +depth of the national character. He saw that the Danish people was sound +at the core, and he therefore merrily divested it of one piece of these +masquerade garments after the other. He wanted to show the people among +which he lived that life is truth, not humbug, and that instead of the +comfortable advice: Disguise! hide! there is the more noble appeal: Be +thyself, and fear not! + +There is a whole literature on _Peder Paars_ in Norwegian and Danish, +and it is only fair to say that opinions of the critics vary as to the +intrinsic value of the different parts of the poem from a literary point +of view. On the other hand, full credit is given to the poem from a +cultural standpoint. Generally speaking, _Peder Paars_ is not only the +first dazzling display of Holberg's genius as a humorous and satirical +writer; it also reveals him as the future playwright, who within a few +years was to send pit, boxes and galleries into fits of laughter. + +Indeed, we may ask the question: Was there ever in any country a +professor of metaphysics with so adequate a store of humour and with a +more irresistible fancy to display it? + + +IV. + +Holberg as a dramatic author is certainly one of the most interesting +chapters in the history of Norwegian and Danish literature, and none has +been subjected to a more searching examination. + +It is admitted by all critics that he is indebted to the famous +playwrights of ancient Rome--Plautus and Terentius--and he certainly +also owes something to the Italian comedy with which he had become +acquainted both in Italy and in Paris. His relation to Molière whom he +admired very much has been a matter of discussion, even in France, and +there are in some of his plays characters and scenes which remind one of +the English dramatists of the Restoration. But he never stooped to mere +imitation. The comedies which have established his fame all bear the +indelible stamp of his originality and of his genius. + +Let us take a short review of some of the most famous of his comedies. + +First you make the acquaintance of the _Tinker Politician_--a typical +representative of the time, so occupied with speculations and +discussions on public affairs that he has no time to look after his own +trade. It consequently goes from bad to worse. He is the central figure +in a self-appointed board of Blue-Apron Politicians--a saddler, a +cutler, a wig-maker, and so on. They are over head and ears in politics, +discussing the events of the Spanish War of Succession, giving advice to +Prince Eugène and the Duke of Marlborough or denouncing their +dispositions, while expounding the most startling historical theories +and making the most absurd geographical assertions. They are also +eagerly taking down their own authorities. + +Holberg has been so cautious as to make Hamburg the scene of his comedy, +for it would certainly not have been tolerated if the action had been +made to take place at Copenhagen. Some of the remarks made by the +characters of the play have, therefore, retained a wonderful actuality. +By way of example: "Indeed, those people don't see what is to the true +benefit of Germany." Replacing the word Germany by the word Denmark we +see, however, the homely, eighteenth-century address quite clearly. + +In the third act the _Tinker Politician_ is most unexpectedly appointed +Burgomaster of Hamburg--a sham appointment, of course, arranged by some +persons who wish to play a practical joke on him in order to put his +remarkable political qualities and his much-boasted administrative +faculties to the test. It need hardly be said that his burgomastership +which, by the way, only lasts twenty-four hours, filled up with constant +embarrassments, disillusionments and mortifications, finally turns out a +complete failure. He is just about to hang himself in a fit of despair +when he is informed of the joke which has been played upon him. He +rejoices in his good luck, denounces his political vanity in a verse +which has become classic, and the moral of which may be expressed in the +old proverb: "The shoemaker should stick to his last." + +In another play we meet _Jean de France_, a Copenhagen cousin of _The +Gentleman Dancing Master_, as Wycherly presents him in one of his +wittiest plays. His name is Hans Frandsen, a Danish family name--plain +and unpretentious. But Hans has been ten weeks in Paris and has returned +with his name translated. He mixes his Danish with French words and +phrases in the most ridiculous way, trespassing against all the rules of +French Grammar. He quite impresses his father and mother by his +high-sounding name, his Parisian manners, and his _air de grand +seigneur_, but his would-be father-in-law informs him very plainly that +he is an old-fashioned Danish citizen who means to stand no nonsense, +and who will never give his daughter to a fool. Through a practical joke +played upon Jean de France by means of the clever maid servant, who +pretends to have left Paris for Copenhagen with the sole purpose of +seeing him and enjoying his company, his ridiculousness is so amply +proved that he ultimately resolves to shake off the dust of Denmark from +his feet and return to fair France. The moral of the play may be +expressed in the old saying: All is not gold that glitters--and the +substance of it is to serve as a warning against the bad custom of the +time of sending young people abroad before they have developed the +necessary amount of self-knowledge and commonsense to profit by their +stay. + +In _Jacob von Thyboc_ or _The Bragging Soldier_, we meet a +highly-developed specimen of "the military fool." I think this comedy +stands out as one of the most daring attacks in any literature on the +military profession. It is a picture of early eighteenth-century +militarism in its worst form, redeemed by no sympathetic feature, the +Danish army being at that time practically flooded by German officers, +bragging and swearing, mixing German and Danish in the most horrible +way, scolding and flogging their soldiers, but at the emergency cowards, +eager to save their skins. + +As a matter of course, Holberg also introduces to us what we may call +"the Latin fool." His name is _Erasmus Montanus_--an unsurpassable +translation of the plain Danish name, Rasmus Berg. He exhibits his +learning as a constant display of paradoxes and gives only one evidence +of sound judgment and insight. Erasmus is capable of proving that his +mother is a stone, because a stone cannot fly, nor can his mother; but +as the poor peasant woman gets afraid of this astounding metamorphosis +and already thinks her legs are turning cold, he graciously comforts her +by the assurance that she can think and speak, which a stone cannot. +"Consequently you are no stone, mother!" He can also prove by several +arguments that children are entitled to thrash their old parents, one of +the arguments being that you have to restore what has been bestowed upon +you. It serves him right when the whole parish finally rises against +him, not because of all these foolish assertions, but because of the +only theory in which he is perfectly right, and which he proves by fair +arguments, that of the earth being round. On this point he has to give +in and admit that the earth is flat like a pancake--the only condition +on which the father of his sweetheart will give his consent to the +marriage. + +In the _Lying-in Room_, a most curious portrait of contemporary customs +and manners in connection with such a daily event as the birth of a +child--we find ourselves in a female gallery, unsurpassed in any +literature for variety, liveliness and realism. It might be worthy of a +whole lecture on what would certainly prove a highly interesting +subject: Holberg and the Fair Sex. + +May I finally mention as perhaps the most deeply human of all his +comedies, _Jeppe on the Hill_ or _The Transformed Peasant_. It is a +representation of a practical joke played on a poor peasant who is found +in a field near the high road, senselessly intoxicated. He is +subsequently brought to the mansion, put into his lordship's bed and +garbed with his lordship's finest nightshirt. He awakes and believes +himself in Paradise, is treated as a Lord by the real owner of the +mansion whose sham servility makes him behave himself insolently, and is +once more intoxicated and replaced where he was found in his old dirty +clothes. He is then accused of intrusion and violent behaviour at the +mansion, sentenced formally to death, and subjected, when asleep, under +the influence of a drug, to a sham execution, the rope being fastened +under his arms instead of round his neck. He is finally lowered from the +gallows, and brought back to life by the same authorities who have +sentenced him to death, after which he is dismissed with a few +shillings--and the bitter conviction that he has been treated as a +plaything by the Lord of the mansion. + +The low social level of the Danish peasantry in Holberg's days which +contrasted so unfavourably with the social standing of the Norwegian +peasants; the state of drunkenness to which they stooped in consequence +of the physical and moral humiliations to which they were subjected, and +which they wished to forget; the commonsense and keen power of +reflection of which they nevertheless were possessed and to which +Holberg has paid the famous tribute: "I never speak with peasants +without learning something from them"--all this has combined to make +Jeppe perhaps the most famous person in the Holberg gallery, conquering +generation after generation by his inexhaustible flow of life. + +It has justly been said by the famous Danish poet, Oehlenschlaeger +(1779-1850) that if we might imagine that every document and record +bearing upon Denmark at the commencement of the eighteenth century +suddenly vanished from the earth with the sole exception of Holberg's +comedies, it would yet be possible to reconstruct the Danish community +of the time on the basis of them. This assertion is no exaggeration, but +nevertheless it only contains a half truth. + +In their outward appearance Holberg's comedies are Danish--customs and +manners, names and scenery being contemporary Danish portraits hailing +from Copenhagen or from the province--but from within they are +unmistakably Norwegian. In fact, the typical characters of the Holberg +gallery are not only his compatriots; they are natives of Bergen like +himself. The old-fashioned gentleman, Jeronimus, narrow-minded, but +possessed of a solid stock of commonsense which will stand no nonsense +from the younger generation; his wife Magdelone, who has some +recollections of a merry youth and is not altogether proof against +relapses into former extravagances; Henrik, the clever servant with the +ever-inventive brain, the champion of the rights of youth; Pernille, the +witty chamber-maid, alternately impertinent and obsequious, but always +beaming with mirth, sure of a safe, however narrow, escape--every one of +them, as well as a number of less important characters, are stamped by +their own dear, queer town. You may even meet them in the streets of +Bergen to-day. It was not therefore by chance that the national stage of +Norway was founded at Bergen in the middle of the nineteenth century. +The city in which Holberg was born and in which his persons moved about +in life, quite naturally became the birthplace of the Norwegian scenic +art, and it is the lasting honour of the actors and actresses of the +_Bergen National Stage_--still the official name of the theatre of the +city--to have contributed to build up a Holberg tradition, which has +been further developed by actors and actresses from other parts of the +country, chiefly at the Christiania Theatre and its artistic heir the +National Theatre at Christiania. + + +V. + +In 1728 Copenhagen was devastated by a fire, the extent of which, +comparatively speaking, can only be likened to the famous fire of London +sixty-two years earlier, to which I have already made a reference. In +its consequences, it was even more far-reaching. It closes a chapter of +high political and cultural interest in the history of the +Dano-Norwegian monarchy, and opens a new one, imbued with an entirely +different spirit, the characteristic features of which were Pietism and +Germanism. Denmark, and more especially Copenhagen, became an +intellectual province of Germany, customs and manners being stamped by +the new religious movement, and ordinary life surrounded by a serenity +which closed the door on all pleasures and enjoyments. It goes without +saying that theatrical performances were considered most sinful, and +that, even if the national stage had not had to go into bankruptcy some +years before the fire, playgoing would have been promptly forbidden +along with balls, masquerades, and other public and private +entertainments. + +Under these circumstances Holberg who, not long ago had published his +autobiography as a sort of apology--a literary event which, for various +reasons, has been very much discussed by Holberg students--had to give +up his activity as a playwright and turn to a work more in conformity +with his position as a professor in the University of Copenhagen. But +before he did so, he felt it his duty to inform the public that he was +the author of the comedies which had hitherto appeared under the +fictitious name of a citizen of a provincial town. He certainly did not +tell the public anything new by this information, but he impressed it +favourably and, what is more important still, he has profited by it in +the eyes of posterity. We are pleased to learn, through the authority of +Holberg himself on the eve of his long silence as a playwright, that he +admits the authorship of his immortal comedies in face of enemies whose +machinations might have overthrown him from behind, if he had not turned +round to meet them and confronted them with an open visage. + +In 1730 Holberg was appointed Professor of History, and for the next +sixteen years, covering the whole of the reign of Christian VI., he +displays the activity of an historian, an essayist, and a philosophical +writer--another proof of the remarkable versatility of his genius. +Within recent years this phase of Holberg's authorship has been +subjected to a close and interesting examination, especially by +Norwegian Holberg students, and many valuable features, adding to the +correctness of Holberg's portrait as an author and as a man, have been +established beyond doubt. His historical works, obsolete though they are +and superseded by modern contributions, are imbued with the same spirit +as _Peder Paars_ and the _Comedies_. In his _History of Denmark_ +(I.-III.) his greatest and most mature work; in his _Description of +Denmark and Norway_; in his _Description of Bergen_; in his _General +History of the Church_; in his _History of Heroes_ and in his _History +of Heroines_, to mention only the most important historical works of +this part of his life, in all of them we discover the same qualities +which struck us as characteristic features in his first work, deepened +by his experiences and sharpened by his superior faculty of observation. +In particular, we notice the light thread of irony running through the +whole tissue of his reflection and composition, stamping argument and +style alike by the irresistible humour of his genius. It is as if the +playwright is constantly casting a glance on the manuscript over the +shoulder of the historian, and as if merry Thalia always takes a fancy +to tease her serene sister Kalliope. + +In the midst of his learned studies Holberg, in a relapse, as it were, +to his former satirical humour, surprised the public by a work which +very soon got international reputation. It appeared at Leipzig in 1741, +in Latin, under the title of _Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum_, and was +promptly translated into a number of European languages, among them +English. The first English translation of _Niels Klim_ dates from 1742; +the next from 1828.[3] It ought to reappear in a new translation, and be +included among the World's Classics, for next to _Gulliver's Travels_ +there is hardly a work in any literature to which it can be adequately +compared. + +Niels Klim is a Norwegian student--from Bergen, course--who, after +having taken his degrees at the University of Copenhagen, both in +theology and philosophy, has "returned penniless from the temple of the +Muses, like all other Norwegian students." Strolling about one day among +the hills which surround the city, he comes across a big cavern, +remarkable "from time immemorial" for a continual groaning caused by the +circulation of the air which is being drawn into the hole and again +expelled. He makes up his mind to investigate the phenomenon and a few +days later, assisted by four labourers, with rope and boat-hooks he +makes his descent, being lowered gently down the centre of the hole. +Unfortunately the rope suddenly snaps when he is only 12 feet down, and +in the midst of a thick darkness Mr. Klim, with tremendous rapidity, +falls straight through the globe until he ultimately finds himself +perfectly unhurt on another planet. He is startled at discovering that +the inhabitants of the country, the name of which is _Potu_, are walking +trees, moving about with an extreme slowness and gravity. He afterwards +finds out that the mental qualities of the Potuites are in every respect +in conformity with their outward appearance. + +Potu is England, as Holberg saw it--and wished to see it--and in the +local description of it we quickly discover scenes of an unmistakable +English kind. The Potuites are possessed of a highly conservative +temper, but at the same time they are imbued with a true liberal spirit, +which makes their institutions, customs and manners--in short, their +community as a whole--contrast favourably with the communities of +contemporary Europe. + +In Potu there are no religious quarrels, because the whole creed of the +population is contained in a few, easily intelligible, and very concise +sentences. There are no "suffragettes" either, to use a modern term, for +the women enjoy all the rights which among the European nations, are +bestowed upon men alone. A highly esteemed widow holds the office of +Minister of Finance; an elderly unmarried lady is Chief Justice--both to +the perfect satisfaction of their compatriots. The sciences taught at +the academies of Potu are History, Economy, Mathematics and +Jurisprudence. Medicine is considered superfluous, as an academic +science, owing to the temperate and regular habits of the Potuites, +while Metaphysics is strictly prohibited, those inclined to such studies +being promptly banished to the interior of the firmament. The government +of Potu is based upon the principles of absolutism, but as the Princes +always rule strictly in accordance with the principle of justice and +there is a perfect equality among the citizens--all ranks and titles +having been abolished centuries ago--the Potuites are very pleased with +the state of public affairs and do not want any change. It is not +absolutely prohibited to make proposals tending to change the existing +conditions, but reformers had better take care before launching their +proposals, for if they are deemed futile by the commission appointed to +consider them, the schemer is sure to be hanged. + +Mr. Klim, who is considered too versatile to hold any office of +importance in the Principality of Potu, is vexed to see himself +entrusted with the office of a royal courier, for which the Potuites +find him excellently fitted owing to his fast legs. In this capacity he +travels all over the principality, having a number of remarkable +experiences, visiting, among other places, the famous site of learning +of Keba, the subterraneous Oxford. Unfortunately, Mr. Klim cannot +control his European ambition as a reformer, but owing to his foreign +origin and his inexperience, he escapes the gallows and is expelled +instead. He subsequently arrives in the Republic of Martinia, the +inhabitants of which form the most complete contrast to the Potuites. +The Martinians are apes, and in their country, which, as can easily be +seen, is meant to be a sort of underground France, everything goes with +a tremendous speed. Proposals and schemes of every kind are flying +about; the number of schemers is unlimited; innovations are hailed with +rapture, their popularity being always in proportion to their +foolishness. Mr. Klim becomes the hero of Martinia and is considered a +true benefactor of the nation when he invents the wig, which is promptly +adopted by the Martinians. Unfortunately a Martinian lady, the wife of +one of the most prominent men of the Republic, falls in love with him, +and as he declines her advances, her love is changed into hatred and she +gets him banished from the country. + +After a series of remarkable adventures Mr. Klim ultimately lands in +Quama, the inhabitants of which are human beings at a very low level of +civilisation, among whom he appears in the quality of a reformer. In +Quama he discovers a highly interesting manuscript, the work of a +Quamite, describing his experiences in a European journey. It is a +first-rate eighteenth century satire on European conditions and the +customs and manners of the principal countries of Europe. Even here +Holberg's predilection for England does not fail. The English, I think +you will be pleased to learn, are let off most easily. Like his +countryman, Peer Gynt, a century later, though under somewhat different +conditions, Mr. Klim ultimately is chosen Emperor by the Quamites, but +this proves to be too much for him. His ambition very soon passes all +reasonable limits and his reign only knows the two alternatives: +World-power or Downfall. It need hardly be said that the latter becomes +the natural issue, and as a dethroned monarch he has to hide himself in +a deep cavern to escape the rage of his embittered subjects, whom he has +utterly duped and destroyed. Suddenly he loses his footing and falls +with a tremendous rapidity through the earth the opposite way to that by +which he arrived on the underground planet. He naturally lands again +outside of Bergen and ends his days as a modest parish clerk, although +never forgetting that once upon a time he used to be an Underground +Emperor. + +Niels Klim is, no doubt, the highest revelation of Holberg's genius. We +find in it all the humour of _Peder Paars_ and the _Comedies_; his sound +judgment and his keenness of observation as an historian; his +broad-mindedness as a philosopher; his tolerance as a moralist. As a +work of fiction, it yields to none in exuberant phantasy, and the +imperturbable calmness of the argument and of the style only adds to its +worth. + +In 1746 the reign of Pietism came to an end on the death of Christian +VI. The accession to the throne of his frivolous, intemperate son, +Frederick V., whose first wife was a daughter of George II., inaugurated +a new era. All gates of enjoyment were at once thrown open. Hymn-books +and Bibles were flung away, and people crowded to theatres, masquerades, +dancing halls and other entertainments. Holberg's dramatic vein began to +flow again after a twenty years' ebb, but the comedies of his closing +years can in no way be compared to those which he produced in the +hey-day of his life. More valuable to us than these comedies is the +series of smaller essays in the form of _Epistles_ (five volumes), and +_Moral Thoughts_ (two volumes), which he wrote in these years along with +a number of minor, and we may also say, inferior works. These volumes +are still a rich source of information to Holberg students. In none of +his works do we get a more intimate personal acquaintance with him. We +learn to know him in his modest, lonely, every-day life; his sympathies +and his antipathies; "the anfractuosities of his mind and of his +temper," which were certainly no less obvious than Samuel Johnson's; his +corporal frailties; his mental recreations. He is, in a certain way, his +own Boswell--less obtrusive, however, and, as a consequence, more +concise. There is no subject so insignificant that he thinks it below +his dignity to discuss it; there is none so exalted that he refrains +from expressing his opinion upon it. He tells us as willingly why he +prefers a cat to a dog, and what a real shoemaker ought to know--as he +tells us his opinion on God and eternity; the destination of man and the +supposed greatness of the popular heroes of history whom, by the way, he +is more inclined to consider as the mischief makers of mankind and the +squanderers of its economic wealth. Through the whole of this wonderful +collection of essays we breathe what Hamlet would call "the eager and +the nipping air" of originality, invigorating by its draught of +commonsense and moral responsibility. We easily forgive him that some +of his views are obsolete, for in other respects he is far ahead of his +time, and by his unbiassed attitude leaves even the most advanced +spirits of his age behind him. + +How splendidly--only to mention one example--he is able to grasp a +character like that of Cromwell! At a time when Cromwell was generally +considered one of the most abominable personalities in history and a +disgrace to his nation; when Hume and Voltaire vied with each other in +misunderstanding him, both being of opinion that Cromwell's character +was broadly that of a shrewd and daring hypocrite,[4] Holberg was no +less convinced of the true genius of the Protector than of his personal +good faith and of his patriotic ambition. + +"The greatest gifts of nature," he says, "every one of which would make +a man prominent in comparison with others were, to an equal degree, +concentrated in Cromwell. He seems to have received something from all +nations, for one saw in him Italian shrewdness and cunning, French +swiftness, English courage and Spanish firmness. He founded his fabric +with cunning; he puts his machine in action with rapidity; by his +courage he was victorious everywhere.... It may be said that his +wonderful deeds and his great name were sufficient to keep his internal +and external enemies in subjection, for as he was hated by all, so he +was also admired by all.... Cromwell ranks with those few men whom +nature seems to have exhausted herself in moulding."[5] + +I think you will admit that this is an extraordinary tribute to the +memory of the Protector, considering that it was written in 1749 by a +loyal subject of an absolute monarch, who had to weigh his words +carefully when speaking about a regicide. Anyhow, Holberg's essay is the +first scientific rehabilitation of Cromwell before Carlyle. + +Five years later--energetic and active as ever and, above all, +remarkably receptive to the new ideas of the time, and eager to subject +them to a close examination--Holberg quietly breathed his last. He died +on January 28th, 1754, at the age of 69, in his city residence at +Copenhagen. Lonely as he had been in life, his death was barely noticed, +and a few years later one of his more intelligent contemporaries remarks +with regret, that he seems to be almost entirely forgotten. Holberg +certainly did not expect anything in the way of public mourning and +official obsequies on the part of the community in which he felt himself +an alien, and upon the mind of which the greatness of his lifework had +not yet dawned; but even what may be called the decorum of indifference +was absent on this occasion. + +Yet time has brought its revenge. Before the expiration of the +eighteenth century Holberg's work was in a fair way to being +acknowledged. From the 'thirties of last century it rose rapidly in +esteem. The bi-centenary jubilee of his birth, which was celebrated all +over Norway and Denmark on December 3rd, 1884, gave a lasting impetus to +his fame. His commanding position in literature was established for all +time. + +In his article on Holberg in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (Vol. +XIII.), Mr. Edmund Gosse justly says: "Holberg was, with the exception +of Voltaire, the first writer in Europe in two generations. Neither Pope +nor Swift, who perhaps exceeded him in particular branches of +literature, approached him in range of genius or in encyclopaedic +versatility. Holberg found Denmark"--Mr. Gosse might have added _and +Norway_--"without books. He wrote a library for her" (_i.e._, +_them_) ... "He filled the shelves of the citizens with works in their +own tongue ... all written in a true and manly style and representing +the extreme attainment of European culture at the moment." + +In this appreciation we all heartily agree. Therefore, wherever you go +in Denmark and Norway Holberg's name is familiar. Words and sayings of +his live on the lips of both nations as colloquial terms. He sits in +bronze in an arm-chair outside the main entrance of the Royal Theatre at +Copenhagen; his noble sepulchre is at Soroe, a dreaming little site of +learning in Zeeland. He looks down from his pedestal upon the busy life +of the Bergen fishmarket, leaning upon his walking stick as if he was +about to make a remark. Over the portico of the National Theatre at +Christiania, facing the square, his name is inscribed in golden letters +between those of Ibsen and Björnson. It is the ambition of all comic +actors in Norway and Denmark to appear in one of the chief characters of +his immortal gallery. He is in high favour with the public, who applaud +him with mirth and laughter; he is the pride of his townsmen, who +cherish his memory in a special _Holberg Club_. And in the silent +libraries students carefully turn over the leaves of his works to find +out new aspects of his genius and of his personality. In fact, the +Holberg literature is increasing year by year. + +Yet there is one thing wanting. He must be better known abroad, +especially in this country. He must become one of the world's classics +and find his way to the book-shelves of British homes. + +More than seventy years ago _Welhaven_, one of the greatest Norwegian +poets of the nineteenth century, in a noble poem summed up the position +of Holberg and our obligation to him in a verse which may be rendered +thus in English: + + _And therefore, like a gem with precious gleam, + His name shall live in high and old esteem, + And Northern men with tender care shall save + His noble image from oblivion's grave._ + +I have only a few words to add to these stanzas. Just as we Norwegians +have learnt to look upon Ludvig Holberg--in no other light we want you +English to see him. He is one of the highest revelations of the Spirit +of the West and, at the same time, the most precious link in the ancient +chain of sympathy between England and Norway. + + + + +HOLBERG LITERATURE AND HOLBERG STUDENTS. + +(BRIEF SUMMARY.) + + +Notwithstanding the many highly interesting works both in Norwegian and +Danish bearing upon the importance and the position of Holberg, no +complete _Life of Holberg_ has as yet been written in either language. +We are entitled to ask the question: Will there ever be an adequate one? + +As far as Norway is concerned, the most important Holberg students of +the nineteenth century are: Olaf Skavlan (1838-1891); Ludvig Daae +(1834-1910), and J. E. Sars (1835-1917), all of whom were professors in +the University of Christiania. In the same connection may be mentioned +Henrik Jæger (1854-1895), the author of the well-known _Illustreret +Norsk Literaturhistoric_, in the first volume of which there is a +valuable outline of Holberg's life and works along with a short +reference to the Holberg literature (down to 1896), not only in the +Norwegian, Danish and Swedish languages, but also in German. + +Among the Norwegian Holberg students of to-day, Mr. Viljam Olsvig, M.A., +holds the most conspicuous place. In a number of works published within +the last twenty odd years, largely bearing upon the connection between +Holberg and England, he may fairly be said to have given a new impetus, +and even a new turn, to the study of Holberg. Messrs. Francis Bull, +Ph.D., and Sigurd Höst, M.A., have, within the last few years, thrown +new light on Holberg as an historian; at the same time, the Rev. Ludvig +Selmer has subjected Holberg's moral and religious conception of life to +a close and interesting examination. Messrs. Just Bing, Ph.D., and +Nordahl Olsen, a Bergen editor, have added valuable information to our +former knowledge of Holberg in connection with his native town. + +The contributions of Denmark to the Holberg literature are entitled to a +fair acknowledgment on the part of Norway, and we certainly are greatly +indebted both to the Danish Holberg students of the middle of last +century (above all, E. C. Werlauff, 1781-1871) and the Holberg students +of to-day (including Professor Georg Brandes and Professor Vilhelm +Andersen) for the excellent way in which they have explained Holberg to +us from a Danish point of view. + +A complete list of Holberg's works (original and translations) is +contained in the British Museum's _Catalogue of Printed Books_ (Vol. +XXIX.), 1889. + + + + +HOLYWELL PRESS + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Epistola ad virum per illustrem._ An English translation of this +work under the title of _Memoirs of Lewis Holberg, written by Himself in +Latin, and now first translated into English_, was published in London +(Hunt & Clarke), 1827. + +[2] In 1733 Holberg published a brief "Synopsis" in Latin, partly based +on this work. In 1755 the Synopsis was translated into English by +Gregory Sharp, LL.D., Fellow of the Royal Society, the translation being +dedicated to the then Prince of Wales, afterwards George III. (A second +edition, "corrected and enlarged," appeared in 1758.) In 1787 a new +revised English edition of the Synopsis was published by William +Radcliffe, A.B., of Oriel College, Oxford. Both translators are +unanimous in their praise of the original, Radcliffe describing it as _a +work which by its disposition and arrangement in the matter of history +has been eminently useful to young students and is approved by the +highest Orders of literature_. + +[3] The complete title of the later translation is: _Journey to the +World Underground, Being the subterraneous Travel of Niels Klim_. +Translated from the Latin of Lewis Holberg, London. Published by Thomas +North, 66 Paternoster Row, 1828. + +[4] Voltaire, in his _Siècle de Louis XIV._, Chap. II (1752), says: +"Cromwell ... portant l'Evangile dans une main; l'épée dans l'autre, le +masque de religion sur le visage ... couvrit des qualités d'un grand roi +tous les crimes d'un ursurpateur." In his _Essai sur les Moeurs_, Chap. +clxxxi. (1757), Voltaire speaks of Cromwell as a man who "parvint a se +faire roi sous un autre nom par sa valeur, secondée de son hypocrisie." +Hume, in his _History of England_, Chap. lx. (1754) describes Cromwell +as a man who, "transported to a degree of madness with religious +ecstasies, never forgot the purposes to which they might serve ... +secretly paving the way by artifice and courage to his own unlimited +authority." + +[5] The essay, from which the above is a quotation, was published for +the first time in English in the _English Historical Review_, vol. +xxxii., page 412-415 (1917), with an introduction by Mr. R. Laache, +M.A., Christiania. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: + + + Text in italics is enclosed with underscores: _italics_. + + Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from + the original. + + Punctuation has been corrected without note. + + Obvious typographical errors have been corrected as follows: + Page 34: duplicate word "a" removed. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ludvig Holberg, The Founder of +Norwegian Literature and an Oxford Student, by Simon Christian Hammer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUDVIG HOLBERG *** + +***** This file should be named 37177-8.txt or 37177-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/1/7/37177/ + +Produced by David E. 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C. Hammer, M.A.. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + +p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + +hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + +.pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} + +.center {text-align: center;} +.right {text-align: right;} +.big {font-size: 125%;} +.huge {font-size: 150%;} +.giant {font-size: 200%;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold; text-align: center;} + +.figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ludvig Holberg, The Founder of Norwegian +Literature and an Oxford Student, by Simon Christian Hammer + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ludvig Holberg, The Founder of Norwegian Literature and an Oxford Student + +Author: Simon Christian Hammer + +Release Date: August 23, 2011 [EBook #37177] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUDVIG HOLBERG *** + + + + +Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<p class="center"><span class="giant">LUDVIG HOLBERG</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="huge"><span class="smcap">The Founder of Norwegian Literature<br/> +and an Oxford Student</span></span></p> + +<p class="center">BY</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="huge">S. C. HAMMER, M.A.</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/titledeco.png" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="center"><span class="big">OXFORD<br/> +B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET</span><br/> +MCMXX</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="big"><i>Price Two Shillings net</i></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center"><span class="giant">LUDVIG HOLBERG</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="huge"><span class="smcap">The Founder of Norwegian Literature<br/> +and an Oxford Student</span></span></p> + +<p class="center">BY</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="huge">S. C. HAMMER, M.A.</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/titledeco.png" alt="" /></div> + +<p class="center"><span class="big">OXFORD<br/> +B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET</span><br/> +MCMXX</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/frontispiece.png" alt="" /></div> +<p class="caption">LUDVIG HOLBERG</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center"><span class="huge">INTRODUCTORY NOTE</span></p> + + +<p>The following lecture was delivered on May 23rd, 1919, at Magdalen +College, Oxford, by invitation of the President, Sir Herbert Warren, and +in the presence, among others, of the Norwegian Minister in London, Mr. +Benjamin Vogt.</p> + +<p>In revising the manuscript I have thought it necessary to enlarge it on +a few points where I had to condense the lecture in order to keep it +within the confines of an hour. I have also added a few supplementary +footnotes and a brief reference to the bulky Holberg literature which +may perhaps prove of interest to Holberg students in England.</p> + +<p>In paying my respectful thanks to the President of Magdalen College and +the distinguished audience for their kind reception I beg to sum up my +feelings in the words of Holberg himself: <i>Multis sane nominibus +devinctum Oxoniensibus me fateor teneri</i>.</p> + +<p class="right">S. C. H.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Christiania, Norway.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><i>December, 1919.</i></span></p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge">LUDVIG HOLBERG</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. President</span>,<br /> + +<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class="smcap">Your Excellency</span>,</span><br /> + +<span style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Ladies and Gentlemen</span>,</span></p> + + +<p class="center"><span class="big">I.</span></p> + + +<p>I propose to speak to you about my countryman, Ludvig Holberg, the most +famous Norwegian student whose name was ever entered on the records of +this University. If this had not been the case, I should hardly have +ventured to ascend this platform, for I feel that here, if anywhere, it +must be an indispensable condition that the subject should match the +place. For just as Oxford is not primarily an institution of education, +but through its traditions, its companionships, its achievements, the +very embodiment of British genius, British chivalry and British +aspirations, so Ludvig Holberg is, indeed, no author in the ordinary +sense of the word. He is the founder of modern Norwegian and Danish +literature, the greatest playwright, the first critical historian, the +most human and most broad-minded moralist and philosopher of two +nations; a man whose constant work was one of educating; who +revolutionised the conception of life in two kingdoms and paved the way +for the intellectual and political liberty of the future. For all this, +as I am going to show you, he is, next to his genius, highly indebted to +England and, above all, to Oxford. To this place he made his way when he +quitted Norway 213 years ago, imbued with a deep and early sympathy for +England; from this place he went to Copenhagen, the joint capital at +that time of Denmark and Norway, enriched by assets of the highest +importance to his life-work. I, therefore, want to thank you for the +opportunity you have given me to pay a joint tribute to Oxford and +Holberg.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>Ludvig Holberg—<i>Ludovicus Holbergius</i>, <i>Norvegus</i>, as he signed his +name in the Admission Index of the <i>Bodleian Library</i>—was born at +Bergen, the present capital of Western Norway, on December 3rd, 1684. +His father, who was a well-known officer in the Norwegian army, died +when Lewis was an infant; his mother, when he was 10 years old. Lewis +who was the youngest of twelve brothers and sisters, six of whom +attained their majority, therefore very early became acquainted with the +sterner aspects of life and grew up a lonely boy, deprived of the tender +care of a parental home. It was at that time the custom in Norway to +give pay to sons of officers and to initiate them at an early age in +military tactics, the salaries they got being used to defray the +expenses of their education. These petty officers were called corporals, +and Lewis was now promptly appointed corporal in the "Upland Regiment," +far away from his native town, in one of the midland districts.</p> + +<p>This was a rather curious beginning for a man so decidedly +anti-militarist as Holberg was throughout his life. In his +autobiography, published in Latin in 1727,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> he makes fun of the +episode, describing his transformation from a petty officer into a +professor of philosophy as "a sort of Ovidian metamorphosis which might +expose me to the risk of being sent back from my professorial chair to +the camp, if the authorities were disposed to question my +qualifications."</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding this, his appointment as petty officer was to become of +importance to him. As soon as he got his commission he left Bergen for +the midland counties—a remarkable journey at that time, by sea and +land, through a great part of West and Mid Norway—until he finally +arrived at the Fron Vicarage, one of the finest places in the valley of +Gudbrandsdalen and at present one of our most popular tourist districts. +The vicar of Fron, who was his relation on his mother's side, soon +discovered his remarkable abilities, his passion for literature, in +which he had already made some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> trifling attempts, and last but not +least, his gift for languages.</p> + +<p>The two years which Holberg subsequently spent at Fron have, until a +quite recent date, been practically unnoticed by Holberg students, but +it is easy to see that they form an interesting link in the chain of +events connected with his life. His schooldays at Fron were not pleasant +to him, for the assistant master, who had to take care of the boys, was +rather inferior as a teacher. His Latin was bad, his views narrow and +pedantic, his chief instrument of instruction the birch, of which he +made assiduous application. Holberg, who rather early reacted +instinctively and strongly to all strokes of spontaneousness, very soon +conceived a deep dislike and contempt for these pedagogic methods, and +his power of reflection made its combinations and conclusions. Latin and +pedantry became to a certain extent synonymous notions to him, and it +was to be one of his pleasures as a writer to record and hand over to +derision the whole system of travestied learning which was one of the +characteristic features of his age.</p> + +<p>This was the negative aspect of his sojourn at the Fron Vicarage. Its +positive aspect was the time he spent in the library of the vicarage, +where, among a number of Greek and Latin classics, he also found several +modern foreign books, including some Bibles in English and French, an +English and a French dictionary, a French grammar, and an English +reader, with colloquial sentences—rather a curious collection of books +for a Norwegian inland county towards the end of the seventeenth +century. These books, as far as we know, were the first specimens of +English and French literature which he ever saw, but he was fascinated +by them. They were to him messages from the great marvellous world +hundreds of miles beyond the mountains by which he was surrounded. Do +you wonder that he was longing and dreaming, silent and solitary as he +was by disposition?</p> + +<p>But he was not dreaming only. Being a quick observer of things +surrounding him, we may infer that he was deeply impressed by the +customs and manners of the peasants<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> among whom he lived, their cool, +unobtrusive way of behaving themselves, their sound judgment, their +manual cleverness, their traditions, songs and fairy tales, and last but +not least, their dialect, with its peculiar words and phrases, so +decidedly different from his own Bergen tongue and way of speaking. +Indeed, numerous passages in his works are stamped by obvious +reminiscences from his Fron sojourn.</p> + +<p>After an absence which, in more respects than one, ripened him above his +age, Holberg, in 1698, returned to Bergen, where he resumed his studies +under conditions which did not please him at all. During his absence the +grammar school of the city had been subjected to a thorough reform by an +able manager, who was himself an ardent admirer of the classics. +Accordingly, Latin more than ever became the chief subject of +instruction, the command of the language being laboriously aimed at by +means of disputations which were at once linguistic exercises and a +medium of theological and metaphysical fencing.</p> + +<p>Holberg, who always felt himself alien to subtleties of this kind, was +therefore quite agreeable when very soon after the heavy fire at Bergen +in 1702, which stands out as one of the most remarkable events in the +annals of the city, he was sent to the University of Copenhagen, where +he passed his B.A. examination. He does not seem to have been favourably +impressed in any particular degree either by the capital itself or by +the conditions ruling at the University. Otherwise, in his reminiscences +he would hardly have passed by his life as a student in absolute +silence; on the other hand, Bergen, as she presented herself to him +towards the end of 1702 after he had been away for some seven or eight +months, was certainly no cheery place, being still under the gloom of +the devastations of the fire. He therefore quite naturally availed +himself of the earliest opportunity of getting away.</p> + +<p>The two following years of his life, but for a short stay at Copenhagen, +where he completed his theological studies and attained a high degree, +he spent chiefly "in flogging his pupils and converting Norwegian +boors." This is a humorous expression of his for the way in which he +performed his duties<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span> as a tutor to the children of the vicar at +Voss—now one of the best-known districts on the Bergen-Christiania +Railway—and occasionally replaced him in the pulpit. By his own saying +he succeeded decidedly better as a preacher than as a tutor which, by +the way, does not say very much, as he never excelled in either of these +functions. The chief interest connected with his stay at Voss is the +fact that it strengthened his early Fron recollections of the peasants.</p> + +<p>We are entitled to infer from his famous <i>Description of Bergen</i>, which +appeared thirty-five years later, that he has taken a special interest +in Voss, and that he has studied the history and the topography of the +district, and we hardly jump at conclusions in assuming that his +popularity with the peasants was due, not to his sermons, but to the +straightforward, unpretending way in which he approached them. He +carried with him from Voss, as he had carried with him from Fron, +favourable impressions of the Norwegian peasantry to the manly qualities +of whom he often returns in his writings.</p> + +<p>In 1704 Holberg set out on the first of the five famous journeys which +he was to undertake to various parts of Europe within the next +twenty-two years. I shall not spend many words on this particular +journey beyond the fact that he visited West Germany and Holland, which +at that time were under the spell of the operations on the Western +Front, for, as you remember, we find ourselves at that time at the +commencement of the Spanish War of Succession. It is sufficient to state +that the journey lasted about a year, and that Holberg, in the meantime, +had many chequered experiences; by way of example, that it is impossible +for a man with literary talents to get on at Amsterdam, where, to use +his own expression, "trade occupies every man's thoughts, where +philosophy is at a discount, and where even men like Grotius and +Salmasius have to give way to shipowners and merchants." He therefore +ultimately had to return to Norway, arriving in an exhausted condition +at Christianssand, where he was assisted by a friend, Mr. Brix, whom he +happened to meet there. This friend kindly recommended Holberg to +several of the principal inhabitants, and he very soon got a reputation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +as a teacher, especially in French, although—as he learnt on a later +occasion in Paris—his French was not so perfect as the natives of +Christianssand seemed to think.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately he very soon happened to raise the feminine world of the +town against himself. Full of irony as he was, and "delighted with +everything which had an air of novelty"—as he describes himself—he was +greatly amused one day by coming across an anonymous pamphlet in which +the author endeavoured to prove, by sixty-four arguments, that women +have no soul. He promptly learned the chief arguments by heart, and took +every opportunity "of broaching the paradox and of defending it with an +earnestness proportioned to the zeal or indignation with which it was +opposed." Finally, of course, he had to submit and to renounce his +heresy, after which peace was restored. Holberg, who was very musical, +and played excellently on the flute, was subsequently introduced to some +of the most respected families in the town, where he seems to have been +very much appreciated. It will always be a matter of conjecture whether +he contracted at Christianssand, however temporarily, what has been +styled a "heart rheumatism"; but if so, the ladies of Christianssand +have had their revenge; their descendants may still be proud of the +tribute which Holberg in his auto-biography pays to the accomplishments +of their great-great grandmothers.</p> + +<p>In the spring of 1706 Holberg left Christianssand, embarking for England +at Arendal, the well-known neighbouring town, conspicuous even in those +days for its sea-faring reputation. I may, perhaps, in this connection, +take leave to observe that I am a native of that town, and often, when a +boy, sailing out in my boat to the mouth of the harbour, where it opens +towards the horizon far away, or resting on one of the many islets +during the wonderful nights of the Norwegian summer, waiting for the +early fishing hours at sunrise, I would remind myself that these rocks +and skerries outside of my native town were the last part of Norway on +which Holberg looked back when, under the press of a fair wind, his +swift barque carried him away to England, the fairyland of his westward +dreams.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Adieu, adieu! my native shore</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Fades o'er the water blue;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And shrieks the wild sea mew.</span></p> + +<p>It was Norway's "Childe Harold"—the most solitary figure in our +cultural history—who was taking leave of his country, never to see her +rugged shores and her magnificent inland sceneries again. There was, +indeed, nothing poetical about him, for—as you know—the age was a +decidedly prosaic one, and Holberg, later in life, confessed that up to +the age of 30 "he would yawn when he heard the finest piece of poetry +read to him." Yet, as we can see him from our present vantage ground, he +was at that moment the embodiment of the genius of the Norwegian nation, +which once more, as in the saga period, hoisted its sails for Western +Europe, bold, eager of adventures, fascinated at the very thought of +getting away.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="big">II.</span></p> +<p> </p> + + +<p>I want to lay stress on the Norwegian origin and education of Holberg, +on his stay among our peasantry in two characteristic parts of the +country, and also on the fact that he was over 21 when he left Norway +for ever. If these things were not indispensable for a fair conception +of his lifework, I should certainly not have dwelt on them. Yet a few +particulars are still wanted to give a finishing touch to his portrait.</p> + +<p>He set out in life with a delicate figure and an extremely youthful +appearance, but in return he was possessed of some solid, staunch +qualities which moulded him into a first-rate character. From his +mother, whose family is still numerously represented in Norway, he had +inherited a sound realism which made him firmly resolved to get a +position in life and to settle down comfortably on a fixed salary. From +his father, of whose family no trace is left among us, he had inherited +what has been called the itinerary element of his nature—his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> passion +for travelling, initiated by his early Fron journey, his eagerness to +see foreign countries, to stroll about in the big cities, to pass along +the high roads from one country into another, covering extraordinary +distances—an energetic student, a haunter of libraries, always on the +look-out for new books, but above anything else, always and everywhere, +a keen observer of men and things, enriching himself with knowledge from +the fresh, inexhaustible sources of life.</p> + +<p>Besides this, he was a true son of Bergen, the most heterogeneous town +of Norway—a sort of "Noah's Ark," according to his own expression—with +a development of its own which, in the course of centuries, has made the +natives of Bergen differ considerably in views and manners from the rest +of their countrymen. Even in our days these differences still make +themselves felt in some degree. All this you must bear in mind when you +speak about Holberg. The remarkable influence exercised upon him by +Bergen gives the clue to his personality—to his genius as a playwright, +to his liberal views as an historian, to his clear, realistic reasoning +as a philosopher. It is always Bergen, never Copenhagen, which is +uppermost in his mind.</p> + +<p>How excellently this young, highly-gifted Norwegian was prepared for a +thorough appreciation of contemporary England!</p> + +<p>During the forty-six years which had passed since the Restoration of +1660, England—as you will remember—had witnessed a period full of +political and literary activity, but above all, remarkable for its +prodigious advance in the field of science. This progress was, it is +true, a matter of European rather than of English concern, but the +inquiring spirit and the rationalist desire to get to the bottom of +things which were the hallmarks of the age were in no country developed +more strikingly than in England. Latin was still the language in which +scientific works were written, but the Royal Society had already +unfolded its national programme "of bringing all things as near the +mathematical plainness as possible, and of preferring the language of +artisans, countrymen and merchants to that of wits and scholars."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>The extraordinary events of the time also highly appealed to the +receptive mind of Holberg. When he arrived at Oxford in the spring of +1706, in the company of his friend, Mr. Brix, England was in the midst +of the Spanish War of Succession, of which—as we remember—he had got +some experiences on his Dutch journey. During a sojourn of nearly two +years, Holberg was a close observer of everything connected with the +great war. It was not so easy at that time as during the recent +Armageddon to get hold of the historical thread leading up to events and +to explain the facts by way of arguments; but he was impressed by the +dogged determination of the English in their heavy struggle against +Louis XIV., and their unswerving belief in a victorious issue. He +himself never doubted that they would win the war, thanks to their +splendid resources no less than to the very principles for which they +fought. In short, it is the prototype of the world's war by which we are +confronted—the Spirit of the West, the representative of the political +and intellectual liberty of the future struggling against absolutism and +all the reactionary powers of the past.</p> + +<p>As a matter of course, Holberg was a staunch pro-ally, and besides this, +he was also highly interested in the political events of the day. The +Union between England and Scotland which took place during his stay at +Oxford, strikes him as one of the most important acts of statesmanship +in any age—an event of far-reaching consequences—and he never gets +tired of commenting upon it and of subjecting it to new investigations.</p> + +<p>I do not presume to think that I can tell you anything new concerning +the conditions ruling at this University at the commencement of the +eighteenth century, but some brief particulars in connection with +Holberg's stay are of interest and importance for a fair understanding +of the moulding influence of Oxford upon his character and genius.</p> + +<p>Throughout the seventeenth century an increasing number of students from +Denmark and Norway had found their way to Oxford, "the most noble +theatre and emporium to all good sciences," to quote a contemporary +writer. From 1602 to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> 1683 the famous <i>Liber Peregrinorum</i>, or Admission +Index, shows a total of 112 names of Danish and Norwegian origin; during +the next twenty years, up to 1708, their number was 60, of which 46 were +Danes and 14 were Norwegians. These figures are interesting as an +unmistakable proof of the growing intercourse between the Dano-Norwegian +monarchy and England, which by this time had commenced to make itself +decidedly felt in the field of commerce.</p> + +<p>From the commencement of the eighteenth century, London, the famous fire +of which in 1666 had given a great impetus to the small timber ports of +South-Eastern Norway, became a city of growing importance to our +country. During their holidays the Norwegian Oxford students used to +spend their time in London, where there was a numerous colony of Danes +and Norwegians and a constant influx of seamen and merchants, especially +from South Norway. It was not, therefore, altogether by chance that +Holberg arrived in England. He sailed, in fact on the westward current +of the time.</p> + +<p>On their arrival at this University, April 18th, 1706, having covered +their way from Gravesend to London, and from London to Oxford on foot, +Holberg and his friend soon found out that their finances were at so low +an ebb that before they could proceed with their studies they had to +provide for their domestic necessities. Fortunately Oxford was no +particularly expensive place at that time, £40 a year being sufficient +to pull a man through, and Holberg was always very economical, and +understood remarkably well the difficult art of making both ends meet. +Yet their first months at Oxford were passed under very strained +conditions until Mr. Brix succeeded in getting a supply of money from a +banker in London. In the meantime, they had raised the necessary funds +themselves by giving lessons in music and languages, and it is a +characteristic evidence of Holberg's cleverness that, after the +departure of his friend, which took place comparatively soon, he managed +to study at Magdalen College for more than eighteen months, with no +other money than that obtained through his lessons as master of +languages and of the flute.</p> + +<p>The more you try to sound the marvellous authorship of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> Holberg the more +you feel convinced of the importance of his stay at Oxford. It would +require several lectures to trace the way in which his impressions and +his experiences of Oxford have moulded him as an historian, as a +playwright, as a philosopher and moralist. I can only tell you that he +took with him from this place to Copenhagen and to the Dano-Norwegian +community not only the conviction of his future mission, but practically +the very seeds of what should ripen into one of the richest crops in the +field of literature. If Macaulay had known Holberg he would have had to +give a somewhat different turn to his famous sentence: "France has been +the intermediary between England and Mankind." Holberg visited England +twenty-five years before Voltaire and twenty-four years before +Montesquieu, and brought back first hand views and impressions, sifted +only through the medium of his unbiassed mind.</p> + +<p>To put it briefly, Holberg has been the intermediary between England and +the North.</p> + +<p>At Oxford Holberg planned the work by which he started in literature in +1711: <i>Introduction to the History of the European Kingdoms</i>,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> +containing a remarkable chapter on England and the English from the time +of the Romans down to 1702, with quotations from various authors, among +them Milton, William Camden, and Lord Clarendon. This work, against +which many objections have been raised and, to a certain extent, not +unjustly, nevertheless is stamped by the characteristic features of his +genius, so familiar to all Holberg students—his original way of +thinking, his contempt for all sorts of ostentatious learning blocking +the way by irrelevant facts, his plain language—vigorous, manly, with a +turn of its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> own—his sound judgment, and perhaps, above all, the +generally fair way in which he arraigns his persons before the tribunal +of history.</p> + +<p>Summing up his impressions and reminiscences twenty years later, Holberg +says in his autobiography: "<i>I confess that I have many reasons for +considering myself under great obligations to the Oxonians.</i>"</p> + +<p>This is no phrase of politeness. It is the opinion of a man whose +correct and blameless demeanour, no less than his sincerity, his +loyalty, and his intellectual abilities, had won him the appreciation of +his professors and the friendship of his fellow-students. His English +was excellent, and he does not conceal the fact that he is a bit proud +of it. Indeed, it is somewhat of a sacrifice not to indulge in +quotations from Holberg's autobiography—particularly so at the point at +which we find ourselves now—for his description of his stay at Oxford +is highly attractive, not only from a literary but a human point of +view. Altogether his autobiography is a curiously fascinating work, of +which no one will repent making the acquaintance. It ought to reappear +in a modern English translation.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="big">III.</span></p> +<p> </p> + +<p>After an interesting decade the importance of which to the development +of Holberg's genius cannot be over-rated we meet him in 1718 as +Professor of Metaphysics in Copenhagen University. After having left +Oxford in 1708 he had—to sum up the period as briefly as +possible—spent his time in studies at home and in travels abroad. He +never revisited England, but he lived and rooted in the English world of +thought, and whether in Germany, in Paris, in Rome, or at Copenhagen, he +studied and reasoned on the basis of his Oxford experiences. His +principal work from this period, <i>Introduction to the Law of Nature and +of Nations</i>, although little more than an abridgement of Pufendorf's +great work on the same subject, is interesting as a proof of his +independent views and his patriotic ambitions as an historian.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>It would be an exaggeration unworthy of the reserved way in which +Holberg used to express himself, to say that he owed everything to +England. He was certainly also highly indebted to France. Setting apart +what he owes to Holland, Germany and Italy, I think we may square the +debt by saying that while England moulded his character and gave the +first impetus to his genius as an historian, France chiefly contributed +to the unfolding of his genius as a humorous writer. He is the Molière +of the North and, no doubt, one of the greatest dramatic authors ever +born.</p> + +<p>In 1719 Holberg's genius, which, until then, had kept strictly within +the rules prescribed by his professorship, apparently cool and +indifferent to the outside world, suddenly burst into a fit of laughter +which resounded through the North. This was his immortal heroic poem, +<i>Peder Paars</i>, which appeared in the autumn of 1719, and which marks +nothing less than a new era in Norwegian and Danish literature.</p> + +<p><i>Peder Paars</i>, like Ibsen's <i>Peer Gynt</i>, the only parallel in our +literature, is written in verse. Ibsen's rhymes are stamped by his +mastership of form, and move in shifting stanzas according to the +requirements of the situation and the emotion they are intended to +create. Holberg walks throughout his poem on the high-heeled +Alexandrines of the age. <i>Peer Gynt</i> is the embodiment of the Norwegian +soul—Norway, as seen from within. <i>Peder Paars</i> is the central gallery +of contemporary Denmark, with all its queer figures—Denmark, as seen +from without. That is why Holberg could never have written <i>Peder Paars</i> +if he had been born and bred a Dane. He had to be an outsider to get the +right perspective.</p> + +<p>The gist of the poem is quickly told. Peder Paars, a plain Danish +citizen of a provincial town, wants to visit his sweetheart at some +other provincial town a few miles off. He has to go by sea, of course, +for Denmark, as you know, is pre-eminently a country composed of isles, +and, like Odysseus and Aeneas, he has some mighty enemies among the +immortal gods who will not allow him to complete his very reasonable +journey. He is shipwrecked and washed ashore with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> followers on +Anholt, the very smallest of all Danish isles. His experiences in this +place form the chief part of the poem, for in this little, +out-of-the-way island Holberg gives us, as it were, contemporary Denmark +in a nutshell. Finally, the goddess of love pities him; he succeeds in +making his escape from Anholt, and arrives subsequently at Jutland, +where he has another series of remarkable experiences. Like Peer Gynt, +he is put into a mad-house, but some time afterwards he is released and +is escorted in triumph out of town. The last glimpse we get of him is +where he is made a soldier and has to strip himself of all he is +possessed of in order to be set free and become a civilian again. Here +the poem ends abruptly, unfinished, as if the author has got tired; but +the torso stands out as the work of a genius, and for two centuries it +has stood the test of time and towers still as one of the most imposing +works of fiction in Northern literature.</p> + +<p>Holberg had a double purpose with <i>Peder Paars</i>. By the form he chose he +intended to aim a decisive blow at the learned apparatus of classic +poetry as we meet it, especially in Homer and Virgil. There was at that +time a lively discussion going on in England and France as to whether +classic or modern poetry ought to be preferred, and both views had their +eager advocates and opponents. Holberg, as you may easily imagine, sided +with the defenders of modern literature, partly because, being a true +son of the age to which he belonged, he was as indifferent to the fresh +originality of Homer as he was untouched by the high-sounding imitation +of Virgil, and in his poem he mixes them up in a most disrespectful way.</p> + +<p>What is considerably more important to us than the form of his poem is, +however, the substance of it. The former belongs to the taste of an age +which has disappeared long ago; the latter is—as I have already +suggested—a cultural portrait of contemporary Denmark, and at the same +time a marvellous gallery full of human characters, stamped by the +eternal mark of life itself. Holberg, like Hamlet, was of opinion that +there was "something rotten in the state of Denmark," and he made up his +mind to set her right by the sound cure of irony. He could have chosen +no better remedy; for, in fact, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> community in which he found himself +was not disgraced by vices which preyed on the very pith of the nation +and endangered its future. The chief fault with it was that owing to a +development which forms a highly-interesting chapter in the cultural +history of the country—but which it would take too long to +detail—Denmark, as Holberg found her two centuries ago, was about to be +stifled by an atmosphere of pedantry, humbug, hypocrisy and unsound +ambition. Surrounded by laws and orders in council which interfered with +their daily life in the most foolish way and increased the number of +misdemeanants, the Danish people was about to lose its self-respect and +absorb itself in an indiscriminate imitation of foreign nations. +Holberg's keen glance pierced through all this foolery into the very +depth of the national character. He saw that the Danish people was sound +at the core, and he therefore merrily divested it of one piece of these +masquerade garments after the other. He wanted to show the people among +which he lived that life is truth, not humbug, and that instead of the +comfortable advice: Disguise! hide! there is the more noble appeal: Be +thyself, and fear not!</p> + +<p>There is a whole literature on <i>Peder Paars</i> in Norwegian and Danish, +and it is only fair to say that opinions of the critics vary as to the +intrinsic value of the different parts of the poem from a literary point +of view. On the other hand, full credit is given to the poem from a +cultural standpoint. Generally speaking, <i>Peder Paars</i> is not only the +first dazzling display of Holberg's genius as a humorous and satirical +writer; it also reveals him as the future playwright, who within a few +years was to send pit, boxes and galleries into fits of laughter.</p> + +<p>Indeed, we may ask the question: Was there ever in any country a +professor of metaphysics with so adequate a store of humour and with a +more irresistible fancy to display it?</p> + + + +<p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="big">IV.</span></p> +<p> </p> + +<p>Holberg as a dramatic author is certainly one of the most interesting +chapters in the history of Norwegian and Danish literature, and none has +been subjected to a more searching examination.</p> + +<p>It is admitted by all critics that he is indebted to the famous +playwrights of ancient Rome—Plautus and Terentius—and he certainly +also owes something to the Italian comedy with which he had become +acquainted both in Italy and in Paris. His relation to Molière whom he +admired very much has been a matter of discussion, even in France, and +there are in some of his plays characters and scenes which remind one of +the English dramatists of the Restoration. But he never stooped to mere +imitation. The comedies which have established his fame all bear the +indelible stamp of his originality and of his genius.</p> + +<p>Let us take a short review of some of the most famous of his comedies.</p> + +<p>First you make the acquaintance of the <i>Tinker Politician</i>—a typical +representative of the time, so occupied with speculations and +discussions on public affairs that he has no time to look after his own +trade. It consequently goes from bad to worse. He is the central figure +in a self-appointed board of Blue-Apron Politicians—a saddler, a +cutler, a wig-maker, and so on. They are over head and ears in politics, +discussing the events of the Spanish War of Succession, giving advice to +Prince Eugène and the Duke of Marlborough or denouncing their +dispositions, while expounding the most startling historical theories +and making the most absurd geographical assertions. They are also +eagerly taking down their own authorities.</p> + +<p>Holberg has been so cautious as to make Hamburg the scene of his comedy, +for it would certainly not have been tolerated if the action had been +made to take place at Copenhagen. Some of the remarks made by the +characters of the play have, therefore, retained a wonderful actuality. +By<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> way of example: "Indeed, those people don't see what is to the true +benefit of Germany." Replacing the word Germany by the word Denmark we +see, however, the homely, eighteenth-century address quite clearly.</p> + +<p>In the third act the <i>Tinker Politician</i> is most unexpectedly appointed +Burgomaster of Hamburg—a sham appointment, of course, arranged by some +persons who wish to play a practical joke on him in order to put his +remarkable political qualities and his much-boasted administrative +faculties to the test. It need hardly be said that his burgomastership +which, by the way, only lasts twenty-four hours, filled up with constant +embarrassments, disillusionments and mortifications, finally turns out a +complete failure. He is just about to hang himself in a fit of despair +when he is informed of the joke which has been played upon him. He +rejoices in his good luck, denounces his political vanity in a verse +which has become classic, and the moral of which may be expressed in the +old proverb: "The shoemaker should stick to his last."</p> + +<p>In another play we meet <i>Jean de France</i>, a Copenhagen cousin of <i>The +Gentleman Dancing Master</i>, as Wycherly presents him in one of his +wittiest plays. His name is Hans Frandsen, a Danish family name—plain +and unpretentious. But Hans has been ten weeks in Paris and has returned +with his name translated. He mixes his Danish with French words and +phrases in the most ridiculous way, trespassing against all the rules of +French Grammar. He quite impresses his father and mother by his +high-sounding name, his Parisian manners, and his <i>air de grand +seigneur</i>, but his would-be father-in-law informs him very plainly that +he is an old-fashioned Danish citizen who means to stand no nonsense, +and who will never give his daughter to a fool. Through a practical joke +played upon Jean de France by means of the clever maid servant, who +pretends to have left Paris for Copenhagen with the sole purpose of +seeing him and enjoying his company, his ridiculousness is so amply +proved that he ultimately resolves to shake off the dust of Denmark from +his feet and return to fair France. The moral of the play may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> +expressed in the old saying: All is not gold that glitters—and the +substance of it is to serve as a warning against the bad custom of the +time of sending young people abroad before they have developed the +necessary amount of self-knowledge and commonsense to profit by their +stay.</p> + +<p>In <i>Jacob von Thyboc</i> or <i>The Bragging Soldier</i>, we meet a +highly-developed specimen of "the military fool." I think this comedy +stands out as one of the most daring attacks in any literature on the +military profession. It is a picture of early eighteenth-century +militarism in its worst form, redeemed by no sympathetic feature, the +Danish army being at that time practically flooded by German officers, +bragging and swearing, mixing German and Danish in the most horrible +way, scolding and flogging their soldiers, but at the emergency cowards, +eager to save their skins.</p> + +<p>As a matter of course, Holberg also introduces to us what we may call +"the Latin fool." His name is <i>Erasmus Montanus</i>—an unsurpassable +translation of the plain Danish name, Rasmus Berg. He exhibits his +learning as a constant display of paradoxes and gives only one evidence +of sound judgment and insight. Erasmus is capable of proving that his +mother is a stone, because a stone cannot fly, nor can his mother; but +as the poor peasant woman gets afraid of this astounding metamorphosis +and already thinks her legs are turning cold, he graciously comforts her +by the assurance that she can think and speak, which a stone cannot. +"Consequently you are no stone, mother!" He can also prove by several +arguments that children are entitled to thrash their old parents, one of +the arguments being that you have to restore what has been bestowed upon +you. It serves him right when the whole parish finally rises against +him, not because of all these foolish assertions, but because of the +only theory in which he is perfectly right, and which he proves by fair +arguments, that of the earth being round. On this point he has to give +in and admit that the earth is flat like a pancake—the only condition +on which the father of his sweetheart will give his consent to the +marriage.</p> + +<p>In the <i>Lying-in Room</i>, a most curious portrait of contemporary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> customs +and manners in connection with such a daily event as the birth of a +child—we find ourselves in a female gallery, unsurpassed in any +literature for variety, liveliness and realism. It might be worthy of a +whole lecture on what would certainly prove a highly interesting +subject: Holberg and the Fair Sex.</p> + +<p>May I finally mention as perhaps the most deeply human of all his +comedies, <i>Jeppe on the Hill</i> or <i>The Transformed Peasant</i>. It is a +representation of a practical joke played on a poor peasant who is found +in a field near the high road, senselessly intoxicated. He is +subsequently brought to the mansion, put into his lordship's bed and +garbed with his lordship's finest nightshirt. He awakes and believes +himself in Paradise, is treated as a Lord by the real owner of the +mansion whose sham servility makes him behave himself insolently, and is +once more intoxicated and replaced where he was found in his old dirty +clothes. He is then accused of intrusion and violent behaviour at the +mansion, sentenced formally to death, and subjected, when asleep, under +the influence of a drug, to a sham execution, the rope being fastened +under his arms instead of round his neck. He is finally lowered from the +gallows, and brought back to life by the same authorities who have +sentenced him to death, after which he is dismissed with a few +shillings—and the bitter conviction that he has been treated as a +plaything by the Lord of the mansion.</p> + +<p>The low social level of the Danish peasantry in Holberg's days which +contrasted so unfavourably with the social standing of the Norwegian +peasants; the state of drunkenness to which they stooped in consequence +of the physical and moral humiliations to which they were subjected, and +which they wished to forget; the commonsense and keen power of +reflection of which they nevertheless were possessed and to which +Holberg has paid the famous tribute: "I never speak with peasants +without learning something from them"—all this has combined to make +Jeppe perhaps the most famous person in the Holberg gallery, conquering +generation after generation by his inexhaustible flow of life.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>It has justly been said by the famous Danish poet, Oehlenschlaeger +(1779-1850) that if we might imagine that every document and record +bearing upon Denmark at the commencement of the eighteenth century +suddenly vanished from the earth with the sole exception of Holberg's +comedies, it would yet be possible to reconstruct the Danish community +of the time on the basis of them. This assertion is no exaggeration, but +nevertheless it only contains a half truth.</p> + +<p>In their outward appearance Holberg's comedies are Danish—customs and +manners, names and scenery being contemporary Danish portraits hailing +from Copenhagen or from the province—but from within they are +unmistakably Norwegian. In fact, the typical characters of the Holberg +gallery are not only his compatriots; they are natives of Bergen like +himself. The old-fashioned gentleman, Jeronimus, narrow-minded, but +possessed of a solid stock of commonsense which will stand no nonsense +from the younger generation; his wife Magdelone, who has some +recollections of a merry youth and is not altogether proof against +relapses into former extravagances; Henrik, the clever servant with the +ever-inventive brain, the champion of the rights of youth; Pernille, the +witty chamber-maid, alternately impertinent and obsequious, but always +beaming with mirth, sure of a safe, however narrow, escape—every one of +them, as well as a number of less important characters, are stamped by +their own dear, queer town. You may even meet them in the streets of +Bergen to-day. It was not therefore by chance that the national stage of +Norway was founded at Bergen in the middle of the nineteenth century. +The city in which Holberg was born and in which his persons moved about +in life, quite naturally became the birthplace of the Norwegian scenic +art, and it is the lasting honour of the actors and actresses of the +<i>Bergen National Stage</i>—still the official name of the theatre of the +city—to have contributed to build up a Holberg tradition, which has +been further developed by actors and actresses from other parts of the +country, chiefly at the Christiania Theatre and its artistic heir the +National Theatre at Christiania.</p> + + + +<p> </p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span></p> +<p class="center"><span class="big">V.</span></p> +<p> </p> + +<p>In 1728 Copenhagen was devastated by a fire, the extent of which, +comparatively speaking, can only be likened to the famous fire of London +sixty-two years earlier, to which I have already made a reference. In +its consequences, it was even more far-reaching. It closes a chapter of +high political and cultural interest in the history of the +Dano-Norwegian monarchy, and opens a new one, imbued with an entirely +different spirit, the characteristic features of which were Pietism and +Germanism. Denmark, and more especially Copenhagen, became an +intellectual province of Germany, customs and manners being stamped by +the new religious movement, and ordinary life surrounded by a serenity +which closed the door on all pleasures and enjoyments. It goes without +saying that theatrical performances were considered most sinful, and +that, even if the national stage had not had to go into bankruptcy some +years before the fire, playgoing would have been promptly forbidden +along with balls, masquerades, and other public and private +entertainments.</p> + +<p>Under these circumstances Holberg who, not long ago had published his +autobiography as a sort of apology—a literary event which, for various +reasons, has been very much discussed by Holberg students—had to give +up his activity as a playwright and turn to a work more in conformity +with his position as a professor in the University of Copenhagen. But +before he did so, he felt it his duty to inform the public that he was +the author of the comedies which had hitherto appeared under the +fictitious name of a citizen of a provincial town. He certainly did not +tell the public anything new by this information, but he impressed it +favourably and, what is more important still, he has profited by it in +the eyes of posterity. We are pleased to learn, through the authority of +Holberg himself on the eve of his long silence as a playwright, that he +admits the authorship of his immortal comedies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> in face of enemies whose +machinations might have overthrown him from behind, if he had not turned +round to meet them and confronted them with an open visage.</p> + +<p>In 1730 Holberg was appointed Professor of History, and for the next +sixteen years, covering the whole of the reign of Christian VI., he +displays the activity of an historian, an essayist, and a philosophical +writer—another proof of the remarkable versatility of his genius. +Within recent years this phase of Holberg's authorship has been +subjected to a close and interesting examination, especially by +Norwegian Holberg students, and many valuable features, adding to the +correctness of Holberg's portrait as an author and as a man, have been +established beyond doubt. His historical works, obsolete though they are +and superseded by modern contributions, are imbued with the same spirit +as <i>Peder Paars</i> and the <i>Comedies</i>. In his <i>History of Denmark</i> +(I.-III.) his greatest and most mature work; in his <i>Description of +Denmark and Norway</i>; in his <i>Description of Bergen</i>; in his <i>General +History of the Church</i>; in his <i>History of Heroes</i> and in his <i>History +of Heroines</i>, to mention only the most important historical works of +this part of his life, in all of them we discover the same qualities +which struck us as characteristic features in his first work, deepened +by his experiences and sharpened by his superior faculty of observation. +In particular, we notice the light thread of irony running through the +whole tissue of his reflection and composition, stamping argument and +style alike by the irresistible humour of his genius. It is as if the +playwright is constantly casting a glance on the manuscript over the +shoulder of the historian, and as if merry Thalia always takes a fancy +to tease her serene sister Kalliope.</p> + +<p>In the midst of his learned studies Holberg, in a relapse, as it were, +to his former satirical humour, surprised the public by a work which +very soon got international reputation. It appeared at Leipzig in 1741, +in Latin, under the title of <i>Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum</i>, and was +promptly translated into a number of European languages, among them +English. The first English translation of <i>Niels Klim</i> dates<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> from 1742; +the next from 1828.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> It ought to reappear in a new translation, and be +included among the World's Classics, for next to <i>Gulliver's Travels</i> +there is hardly a work in any literature to which it can be adequately +compared.</p> + +<p>Niels Klim is a Norwegian student—from Bergen, course—who, after +having taken his degrees at the University of Copenhagen, both in +theology and philosophy, has "returned penniless from the temple of the +Muses, like all other Norwegian students." Strolling about one day among +the hills which surround the city, he comes across a big cavern, +remarkable "from time immemorial" for a continual groaning caused by the +circulation of the air which is being drawn into the hole and again +expelled. He makes up his mind to investigate the phenomenon and a few +days later, assisted by four labourers, with rope and boat-hooks he +makes his descent, being lowered gently down the centre of the hole. +Unfortunately the rope suddenly snaps when he is only 12 feet down, and +in the midst of a thick darkness Mr. Klim, with tremendous rapidity, +falls straight through the globe until he ultimately finds himself +perfectly unhurt on another planet. He is startled at discovering that +the inhabitants of the country, the name of which is <i>Potu</i>, are walking +trees, moving about with an extreme slowness and gravity. He afterwards +finds out that the mental qualities of the Potuites are in every respect +in conformity with their outward appearance.</p> + +<p>Potu is England, as Holberg saw it—and wished to see it—and in the +local description of it we quickly discover scenes of an unmistakable +English kind. The Potuites are possessed of a highly conservative +temper, but at the same time they are imbued with a true liberal spirit, +which makes their institutions, customs and manners—in short, their +community as a whole—contrast favourably with the communities of +contemporary Europe.</p> + +<p>In Potu there are no religious quarrels, because the whole creed of the +population is contained in a few, easily in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>telligible, and very concise +sentences. There are no "suffragettes" either, to use a modern term, for +the women enjoy all the rights which among the European nations, are +bestowed upon men alone. A highly esteemed widow holds the office of +Minister of Finance; an elderly unmarried lady is Chief Justice—both to +the perfect satisfaction of their compatriots. The sciences taught at +the academies of Potu are History, Economy, Mathematics and +Jurisprudence. Medicine is considered superfluous, as an academic +science, owing to the temperate and regular habits of the Potuites, +while Metaphysics is strictly prohibited, those inclined to such studies +being promptly banished to the interior of the firmament. The government +of Potu is based upon the principles of absolutism, but as the Princes +always rule strictly in accordance with the principle of justice and +there is a perfect equality among the citizens—all ranks and titles +having been abolished centuries ago—the Potuites are very pleased with +the state of public affairs and do not want any change. It is not +absolutely prohibited to make proposals tending to change the existing +conditions, but reformers had better take care before launching their +proposals, for if they are deemed futile by the commission appointed to +consider them, the schemer is sure to be hanged.</p> + +<p>Mr. Klim, who is considered too versatile to hold any office of +importance in the Principality of Potu, is vexed to see himself +entrusted with the office of a royal courier, for which the Potuites +find him excellently fitted owing to his fast legs. In this capacity he +travels all over the principality, having a number of remarkable +experiences, visiting, among other places, the famous site of learning +of Keba, the subterraneous Oxford. Unfortunately, Mr. Klim cannot +control his European ambition as a reformer, but owing to his foreign +origin and his inexperience, he escapes the gallows and is expelled +instead. He subsequently arrives in the Republic of Martinia, the +inhabitants of which form the most complete contrast to the Potuites. +The Martinians are apes, and in their country, which, as can easily be +seen, is meant to be a sort of underground France, everything goes with +a tremendous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> speed. Proposals and schemes of every kind are flying +about; the number of schemers is unlimited; innovations are hailed with +rapture, their popularity being always in proportion to their +foolishness. Mr. Klim becomes the hero of Martinia and is considered a +true benefactor of the nation when he invents the wig, which is promptly +adopted by the Martinians. Unfortunately a Martinian lady, the wife of +one of the most prominent men of the Republic, falls in love with him, +and as he declines her advances, her love is changed into hatred and she +gets him banished from the country.</p> + +<p>After a series of remarkable adventures Mr. Klim ultimately lands in +Quama, the inhabitants of which are human beings at a very low level of +civilisation, among whom he appears in the quality of a reformer. In +Quama he discovers a highly interesting manuscript, the work of a +Quamite, describing his experiences in a European journey. It is a +first-rate eighteenth century satire on European conditions and the +customs and manners of the principal countries of Europe. Even here +Holberg's predilection for England does not fail. The English, I think +you will be pleased to learn, are let off most easily. Like his +countryman, Peer Gynt, a century later, though under somewhat different +conditions, Mr. Klim ultimately is chosen Emperor by the Quamites, but +this proves to be too much for him. His ambition very soon passes all +reasonable limits and his reign only knows the two alternatives: +World-power or Downfall. It need hardly be said that the latter becomes +the natural issue, and as a dethroned monarch he has to hide himself in +a deep cavern to escape the rage of his embittered subjects, whom he has +utterly duped and destroyed. Suddenly he loses his footing and falls +with a tremendous rapidity through the earth the opposite way to that by +which he arrived on the underground planet. He naturally lands again +outside of Bergen and ends his days as a modest parish clerk, although +never forgetting that once upon a time he used to be an Underground +Emperor.</p> + +<p>Niels Klim is, no doubt, the highest revelation of Holberg's genius. We +find in it all the humour of <i>Peder Paars</i> and the <i>Comedies</i>; his sound +judgment and his keenness of observation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> as an historian; his +broad-mindedness as a philosopher; his tolerance as a moralist. As a +work of fiction, it yields to none in exuberant phantasy, and the +imperturbable calmness of the argument and of the style only adds to its +worth.</p> + +<p>In 1746 the reign of Pietism came to an end on the death of Christian +VI. The accession to the throne of his frivolous, intemperate son, +Frederick V., whose first wife was a daughter of George II., inaugurated +a new era. All gates of enjoyment were at once thrown open. Hymn-books +and Bibles were flung away, and people crowded to theatres, masquerades, +dancing halls and other entertainments. Holberg's dramatic vein began to +flow again after a twenty years' ebb, but the comedies of his closing +years can in no way be compared to those which he produced in the +hey-day of his life. More valuable to us than these comedies is the +series of smaller essays in the form of <i>Epistles</i> (five volumes), and +<i>Moral Thoughts</i> (two volumes), which he wrote in these years along with +a number of minor, and we may also say, inferior works. These volumes +are still a rich source of information to Holberg students. In none of +his works do we get a more intimate personal acquaintance with him. We +learn to know him in his modest, lonely, every-day life; his sympathies +and his antipathies; "the anfractuosities of his mind and of his +temper," which were certainly no less obvious than Samuel Johnson's; his +corporal frailties; his mental recreations. He is, in a certain way, his +own Boswell—less obtrusive, however, and, as a consequence, more +concise. There is no subject so insignificant that he thinks it below +his dignity to discuss it; there is none so exalted that he refrains +from expressing his opinion upon it. He tells us as willingly why he +prefers a cat to a dog, and what a real shoemaker ought to know—as he +tells us his opinion on God and eternity; the destination of man and the +supposed greatness of the popular heroes of history whom, by the way, he +is more inclined to consider as the mischief makers of mankind and the +squanderers of its economic wealth. Through the whole of this wonderful +collection of essays we breathe what Hamlet would call "the eager and +the nipping air" of originality, invigorating by its draught of +commonsense and moral responsibility.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> We easily forgive him that some +of his views are obsolete, for in other respects he is far ahead of his +time, and by his unbiassed attitude leaves even the most advanced +spirits of his age behind him.</p> + +<p>How splendidly—only to mention one example—he is able to grasp a +character like that of Cromwell! At a time when Cromwell was generally +considered one of the most abominable personalities in history and a +disgrace to his nation; when Hume and Voltaire vied with each other in +misunderstanding him, both being of opinion that Cromwell's character +was broadly that of a shrewd and daring hypocrite,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Holberg was no +less convinced of the true genius of the Protector than of his personal +good faith and of his patriotic ambition.</p> + +<p>"The greatest gifts of nature," he says, "every one of which would make +a man prominent in comparison with others were, to an equal degree, +concentrated in Cromwell. He seems to have received something from all +nations, for one saw in him Italian shrewdness and cunning, French +swiftness, English courage and Spanish firmness. He founded his fabric +with cunning; he puts his machine in action with rapidity; by his +courage he was victorious everywhere.... It may be said that his +wonderful deeds and his great name were sufficient to keep his internal +and external enemies in subjection, for as he was hated by all, so he +was also admired by all.... Cromwell ranks with those few men whom +nature seems to have exhausted herself in moulding."<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>I think you will admit that this is an extraordinary tribute to the +memory of the Protector, considering that it was written in 1749 by a +loyal subject of an absolute monarch, who had to weigh his words +carefully when speaking about a regicide. Anyhow, Holberg's essay is the +first scientific rehabilitation of Cromwell before Carlyle.</p> + +<p>Five years later—energetic and active as ever and, above all, +remarkably receptive to the new ideas of the time, and eager to subject +them to a close examination—Holberg quietly breathed his last. He died +on January 28th, 1754, at the age of 69, in his city residence at +Copenhagen. Lonely as he had been in life, his death was barely noticed, +and a few years later one of his more intelligent contemporaries remarks +with regret, that he seems to be almost entirely forgotten. Holberg +certainly did not expect anything in the way of public mourning and +official obsequies on the part of the community in which he felt himself +an alien, and upon the mind of which the greatness of his lifework had +not yet dawned; but even what may be called the decorum of indifference +was absent on this occasion.</p> + +<p>Yet time has brought its revenge. Before the expiration of the +eighteenth century Holberg's work was in a fair way to being +acknowledged. From the 'thirties of last century it rose rapidly in +esteem. The bi-centenary jubilee of his birth, which was celebrated all +over Norway and Denmark on December 3rd, 1884, gave a lasting impetus to +his fame. His commanding position in literature was established for all +time.</p> + +<p>In his article on Holberg in the <i>Encyclopaedia Britannica</i> (Vol. +XIII.), Mr. Edmund Gosse justly says: "Holberg was, with the exception +of Voltaire, the first writer in Europe in two generations. Neither Pope +nor Swift, who perhaps exceeded him in particular branches of +literature, approached him in range of genius or in encyclopaedic +versatility. Holberg found Denmark"—Mr. Gosse might have added <i>and +Norway</i>—"without books. He wrote a library for her" (<i>i.e.</i>, +<i>them</i>) ... "He filled the shelves of the citizens with works in their +own tongue ... all written in a true and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> manly style and representing +the extreme attainment of European culture at the moment."</p> + +<p>In this appreciation we all heartily agree. Therefore, wherever you go +in Denmark and Norway Holberg's name is familiar. Words and sayings of +his live on the lips of both nations as colloquial terms. He sits in +bronze in an arm-chair outside the main entrance of the Royal Theatre at +Copenhagen; his noble sepulchre is at Soroe, a dreaming little site of +learning in Zeeland. He looks down from his pedestal upon the busy life +of the Bergen fishmarket, leaning upon his walking stick as if he was +about to make a remark. Over the portico of the National Theatre at +Christiania, facing the square, his name is inscribed in golden letters +between those of Ibsen and Björnson. It is the ambition of all comic +actors in Norway and Denmark to appear in one of the chief characters of +his immortal gallery. He is in high favour with the public, who applaud +him with mirth and laughter; he is the pride of his townsmen, who +cherish his memory in a special <i>Holberg Club</i>. And in the silent +libraries students carefully turn over the leaves of his works to find +out new aspects of his genius and of his personality. In fact, the +Holberg literature is increasing year by year.</p> + +<p>Yet there is one thing wanting. He must be better known abroad, +especially in this country. He must become one of the world's classics +and find his way to the book-shelves of British homes.</p> + +<p>More than seventy years ago <i>Welhaven</i>, one of the greatest Norwegian +poets of the nineteenth century, in a noble poem summed up the position +of Holberg and our obligation to him in a verse which may be rendered +thus in English:</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 3em;"> +<i>And therefore, like a gem with precious gleam,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>His name shall live in high and old esteem,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>And Northern men with tender care shall save</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;"><i>His noble image from oblivion's grave.</i></span></p> + +<p>I have only a few words to add to these stanzas. Just as we Norwegians +have learnt to look upon Ludvig Holberg—in no other light we want you +English to see him. He is one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> of the highest revelations of the Spirit +of the West and, at the same time, the most precious link in the ancient +chain of sympathy between England and Norway.</p> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/illo038.png" alt="" /></div> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><span class="huge">HOLBERG LITERATURE AND HOLBERG STUDENTS.</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="big">(<span class="smcap">Brief Summary.</span>)</span></p> +<p> </p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the many highly interesting works both in Norwegian and +Danish bearing upon the importance and the position of Holberg, no +complete <i>Life of Holberg</i> has as yet been written in either language. +We are entitled to ask the question: Will there ever be an adequate one?</p> + +<p>As far as Norway is concerned, the most important Holberg students of +the nineteenth century are: Olaf Skavlan (1838-1891); Ludvig Daae +(1834-1910), and J. E. Sars (1835-1917), all of whom were professors in +the University of Christiania. In the same connection may be mentioned +Henrik Jæger (1854-1895), the author of the well-known <i>Illustreret +Norsk Literaturhistoric</i>, in the first volume of which there is a +valuable outline of Holberg's life and works along with a short +reference to the Holberg literature (down to 1896), not only in the +Norwegian, Danish and Swedish languages, but also in German.</p> + +<p>Among the Norwegian Holberg students of to-day, Mr. Viljam Olsvig, M.A., +holds the most conspicuous place. In a number of works published within +the last twenty odd years, largely bearing upon the connection between +Holberg and England, he may fairly be said to have given a new impetus, +and even a new turn, to the study of Holberg. Messrs. Francis Bull, +Ph.D., and Sigurd Höst, M.A., have, within the last few years, thrown +new light on Holberg as an historian; at the same time, the Rev. Ludvig +Selmer has subjected Holberg's moral and religious conception of life to +a close and interesting examination. Messrs. Just Bing, Ph.D., and +Nordahl Olsen, a Bergen editor, have added valuable information to our +former knowledge of Holberg in connection with his native town.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>The contributions of Denmark to the Holberg literature are entitled to a +fair acknowledgment on the part of Norway, and we certainly are greatly +indebted both to the Danish Holberg students of the middle of last +century (above all, E. C. Werlauff, 1781-1871) and the Holberg students +of to-day (including Professor Georg Brandes and Professor Vilhelm +Andersen) for the excellent way in which they have explained Holberg to +us from a Danish point of view.</p> + +<p>A complete list of Holberg's works (original and translations) is +contained in the British Museum's <i>Catalogue of Printed Books</i> (Vol. +XXIX.), 1889.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p class="center">HOLYWELL PRESS</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center"><span class="huge">FOOTNOTES:</span></p> +<p> </p> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Epistola ad virum per illustrem.</i> An English translation +of this work under the title of <i>Memoirs of Lewis Holberg, written by +Himself in Latin, and now first translated into English</i>, was published +in London (Hunt & Clarke), 1827.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> In 1733 Holberg published a brief "Synopsis" in Latin, +partly based on this work. In 1755 the Synopsis was translated into +English by Gregory Sharp, LL.D., Fellow of the Royal Society, the +translation being dedicated to the then Prince of Wales, afterwards +George III. (A second edition, "corrected and enlarged," appeared in +1758.) In 1787 a new revised English edition of the Synopsis was +published by William Radcliffe, A.B., of Oriel College, Oxford. Both +translators are unanimous in their praise of the original, Radcliffe +describing it as <i>a work which by its disposition and arrangement in the +matter of history has been eminently useful to young students and is +approved by the highest Orders of literature</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> The complete title of the later translation is: <i>Journey to +the World Underground, Being the subterraneous Travel of Niels Klim</i>. +Translated from the Latin of Lewis Holberg, London. Published by Thomas +North, 66 Paternoster Row, 1828.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Voltaire, in his <i>Siècle de Louis XIV.</i>, Chap. II (1752), +says: "Cromwell ... portant l'Evangile dans une main; l'épée dans +l'autre, le masque de religion sur le visage ... couvrit des qualités +d'un grand roi tous les crimes d'un ursurpateur." In his <i>Essai sur les +Moeurs</i>, Chap. clxxxi. (1757), Voltaire speaks of Cromwell as a man who +"parvint a se faire roi sous un autre nom par sa valeur, secondée de son +hypocrisie." Hume, in his <i>History of England</i>, Chap. lx. (1754) +describes Cromwell as a man who, "transported to a degree of madness +with religious ecstasies, never forgot the purposes to which they might +serve ... secretly paving the way by artifice and courage to his own +unlimited authority."</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The essay, from which the above is a quotation, was +published for the first time in English in the <i>English Historical +Review</i>, vol. xxxii., page 412-415 (1917), with an introduction by Mr. +R. Laache, M.A., Christiania.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p class="center"><span class="huge">TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:</span></p> +<p> </p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Punctuation has been corrected without note.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected as follows:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Page 34: duplicate word "a" removed</span></p> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ludvig Holberg, The Founder of +Norwegian Literature and an Oxford Student, by Simon Christian Hammer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUDVIG HOLBERG *** + +***** This file should be named 37177-h.htm or 37177-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/1/7/37177/ + +Produced by David E. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ludvig Holberg, The Founder of Norwegian Literature and an Oxford Student + +Author: Simon Christian Hammer + +Release Date: August 23, 2011 [EBook #37177] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUDVIG HOLBERG *** + + + + +Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + LUDVIG HOLBERG + + THE FOUNDER OF NORWEGIAN LITERATURE + AND AN OXFORD STUDENT + + BY + + S. C. HAMMER, M.A. + + + OXFORD + B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET + MCMXX + + _Price Two Shillings net_ + + + + + LUDVIG HOLBERG + + THE FOUNDER OF NORWEGIAN LITERATURE + AND AN OXFORD STUDENT + + BY + + S. C. HAMMER, M.A. + + + OXFORD + B.H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET + MCMXX + + + + + [Illustration: LUDVIG HOLBERG] + + + + +INTRODUCTORY NOTE + + +The following lecture was delivered on May 23rd, 1919, at Magdalen +College, Oxford, by invitation of the President, Sir Herbert Warren, and +in the presence, among others, of the Norwegian Minister in London, Mr. +Benjamin Vogt. + +In revising the manuscript I have thought it necessary to enlarge it on +a few points where I had to condense the lecture in order to keep it +within the confines of an hour. I have also added a few supplementary +footnotes and a brief reference to the bulky Holberg literature which +may perhaps prove of interest to Holberg students in England. + +In paying my respectful thanks to the President of Magdalen College and +the distinguished audience for their kind reception I beg to sum up my +feelings in the words of Holberg himself: _Multis sane nominibus +devinctum Oxoniensibus me fateor teneri_. + + S. C. H. + +CHRISTIANIA, NORWAY. + +_December, 1919._ + + + + +LUDVIG HOLBERG + + +MR. PRESIDENT, + + YOUR EXCELLENCY, + + LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, + + +I. + +I propose to speak to you about my countryman, Ludvig Holberg, the most +famous Norwegian student whose name was ever entered on the records of +this University. If this had not been the case, I should hardly have +ventured to ascend this platform, for I feel that here, if anywhere, it +must be an indispensable condition that the subject should match the +place. For just as Oxford is not primarily an institution of education, +but through its traditions, its companionships, its achievements, the +very embodiment of British genius, British chivalry and British +aspirations, so Ludvig Holberg is, indeed, no author in the ordinary +sense of the word. He is the founder of modern Norwegian and Danish +literature, the greatest playwright, the first critical historian, the +most human and most broad-minded moralist and philosopher of two +nations; a man whose constant work was one of educating; who +revolutionised the conception of life in two kingdoms and paved the way +for the intellectual and political liberty of the future. For all this, +as I am going to show you, he is, next to his genius, highly indebted to +England and, above all, to Oxford. To this place he made his way when he +quitted Norway 213 years ago, imbued with a deep and early sympathy for +England; from this place he went to Copenhagen, the joint capital at +that time of Denmark and Norway, enriched by assets of the highest +importance to his life-work. I, therefore, want to thank you for the +opportunity you have given me to pay a joint tribute to Oxford and +Holberg. + +Ludvig Holberg--_Ludovicus Holbergius_, _Norvegus_, as he signed his +name in the Admission Index of the _Bodleian Library_--was born at +Bergen, the present capital of Western Norway, on December 3rd, 1684. +His father, who was a well-known officer in the Norwegian army, died +when Lewis was an infant; his mother, when he was 10 years old. Lewis +who was the youngest of twelve brothers and sisters, six of whom +attained their majority, therefore very early became acquainted with the +sterner aspects of life and grew up a lonely boy, deprived of the tender +care of a parental home. It was at that time the custom in Norway to +give pay to sons of officers and to initiate them at an early age in +military tactics, the salaries they got being used to defray the +expenses of their education. These petty officers were called corporals, +and Lewis was now promptly appointed corporal in the "Upland Regiment," +far away from his native town, in one of the midland districts. + +This was a rather curious beginning for a man so decidedly +anti-militarist as Holberg was throughout his life. In his +autobiography, published in Latin in 1727,[1] he makes fun of the +episode, describing his transformation from a petty officer into a +professor of philosophy as "a sort of Ovidian metamorphosis which might +expose me to the risk of being sent back from my professorial chair to +the camp, if the authorities were disposed to question my +qualifications." + +Notwithstanding this, his appointment as petty officer was to become of +importance to him. As soon as he got his commission he left Bergen for +the midland counties--a remarkable journey at that time, by sea and +land, through a great part of West and Mid Norway--until he finally +arrived at the Fron Vicarage, one of the finest places in the valley of +Gudbrandsdalen and at present one of our most popular tourist districts. +The vicar of Fron, who was his relation on his mother's side, soon +discovered his remarkable abilities, his passion for literature, in +which he had already made some trifling attempts, and last but not +least, his gift for languages. + +The two years which Holberg subsequently spent at Fron have, until a +quite recent date, been practically unnoticed by Holberg students, but +it is easy to see that they form an interesting link in the chain of +events connected with his life. His schooldays at Fron were not pleasant +to him, for the assistant master, who had to take care of the boys, was +rather inferior as a teacher. His Latin was bad, his views narrow and +pedantic, his chief instrument of instruction the birch, of which he +made assiduous application. Holberg, who rather early reacted +instinctively and strongly to all strokes of spontaneousness, very soon +conceived a deep dislike and contempt for these pedagogic methods, and +his power of reflection made its combinations and conclusions. Latin and +pedantry became to a certain extent synonymous notions to him, and it +was to be one of his pleasures as a writer to record and hand over to +derision the whole system of travestied learning which was one of the +characteristic features of his age. + +This was the negative aspect of his sojourn at the Fron Vicarage. Its +positive aspect was the time he spent in the library of the vicarage, +where, among a number of Greek and Latin classics, he also found several +modern foreign books, including some Bibles in English and French, an +English and a French dictionary, a French grammar, and an English +reader, with colloquial sentences--rather a curious collection of books +for a Norwegian inland county towards the end of the seventeenth +century. These books, as far as we know, were the first specimens of +English and French literature which he ever saw, but he was fascinated +by them. They were to him messages from the great marvellous world +hundreds of miles beyond the mountains by which he was surrounded. Do +you wonder that he was longing and dreaming, silent and solitary as he +was by disposition? + +But he was not dreaming only. Being a quick observer of things +surrounding him, we may infer that he was deeply impressed by the +customs and manners of the peasants among whom he lived, their cool, +unobtrusive way of behaving themselves, their sound judgment, their +manual cleverness, their traditions, songs and fairy tales, and last but +not least, their dialect, with its peculiar words and phrases, so +decidedly different from his own Bergen tongue and way of speaking. +Indeed, numerous passages in his works are stamped by obvious +reminiscences from his Fron sojourn. + +After an absence which, in more respects than one, ripened him above his +age, Holberg, in 1698, returned to Bergen, where he resumed his studies +under conditions which did not please him at all. During his absence the +grammar school of the city had been subjected to a thorough reform by an +able manager, who was himself an ardent admirer of the classics. +Accordingly, Latin more than ever became the chief subject of +instruction, the command of the language being laboriously aimed at by +means of disputations which were at once linguistic exercises and a +medium of theological and metaphysical fencing. + +Holberg, who always felt himself alien to subtleties of this kind, was +therefore quite agreeable when very soon after the heavy fire at Bergen +in 1702, which stands out as one of the most remarkable events in the +annals of the city, he was sent to the University of Copenhagen, where +he passed his B.A. examination. He does not seem to have been favourably +impressed in any particular degree either by the capital itself or by +the conditions ruling at the University. Otherwise, in his reminiscences +he would hardly have passed by his life as a student in absolute +silence; on the other hand, Bergen, as she presented herself to him +towards the end of 1702 after he had been away for some seven or eight +months, was certainly no cheery place, being still under the gloom of +the devastations of the fire. He therefore quite naturally availed +himself of the earliest opportunity of getting away. + +The two following years of his life, but for a short stay at Copenhagen, +where he completed his theological studies and attained a high degree, +he spent chiefly "in flogging his pupils and converting Norwegian +boors." This is a humorous expression of his for the way in which he +performed his duties as a tutor to the children of the vicar at +Voss--now one of the best-known districts on the Bergen-Christiania +Railway--and occasionally replaced him in the pulpit. By his own saying +he succeeded decidedly better as a preacher than as a tutor which, by +the way, does not say very much, as he never excelled in either of these +functions. The chief interest connected with his stay at Voss is the +fact that it strengthened his early Fron recollections of the peasants. + +We are entitled to infer from his famous _Description of Bergen_, which +appeared thirty-five years later, that he has taken a special interest +in Voss, and that he has studied the history and the topography of the +district, and we hardly jump at conclusions in assuming that his +popularity with the peasants was due, not to his sermons, but to the +straightforward, unpretending way in which he approached them. He +carried with him from Voss, as he had carried with him from Fron, +favourable impressions of the Norwegian peasantry to the manly qualities +of whom he often returns in his writings. + +In 1704 Holberg set out on the first of the five famous journeys which +he was to undertake to various parts of Europe within the next +twenty-two years. I shall not spend many words on this particular +journey beyond the fact that he visited West Germany and Holland, which +at that time were under the spell of the operations on the Western +Front, for, as you remember, we find ourselves at that time at the +commencement of the Spanish War of Succession. It is sufficient to state +that the journey lasted about a year, and that Holberg, in the meantime, +had many chequered experiences; by way of example, that it is impossible +for a man with literary talents to get on at Amsterdam, where, to use +his own expression, "trade occupies every man's thoughts, where +philosophy is at a discount, and where even men like Grotius and +Salmasius have to give way to shipowners and merchants." He therefore +ultimately had to return to Norway, arriving in an exhausted condition +at Christianssand, where he was assisted by a friend, Mr. Brix, whom he +happened to meet there. This friend kindly recommended Holberg to +several of the principal inhabitants, and he very soon got a reputation +as a teacher, especially in French, although--as he learnt on a later +occasion in Paris--his French was not so perfect as the natives of +Christianssand seemed to think. + +Unfortunately he very soon happened to raise the feminine world of the +town against himself. Full of irony as he was, and "delighted with +everything which had an air of novelty"--as he describes himself--he was +greatly amused one day by coming across an anonymous pamphlet in which +the author endeavoured to prove, by sixty-four arguments, that women +have no soul. He promptly learned the chief arguments by heart, and took +every opportunity "of broaching the paradox and of defending it with an +earnestness proportioned to the zeal or indignation with which it was +opposed." Finally, of course, he had to submit and to renounce his +heresy, after which peace was restored. Holberg, who was very musical, +and played excellently on the flute, was subsequently introduced to some +of the most respected families in the town, where he seems to have been +very much appreciated. It will always be a matter of conjecture whether +he contracted at Christianssand, however temporarily, what has been +styled a "heart rheumatism"; but if so, the ladies of Christianssand +have had their revenge; their descendants may still be proud of the +tribute which Holberg in his auto-biography pays to the accomplishments +of their great-great grandmothers. + +In the spring of 1706 Holberg left Christianssand, embarking for England +at Arendal, the well-known neighbouring town, conspicuous even in those +days for its sea-faring reputation. I may, perhaps, in this connection, +take leave to observe that I am a native of that town, and often, when a +boy, sailing out in my boat to the mouth of the harbour, where it opens +towards the horizon far away, or resting on one of the many islets +during the wonderful nights of the Norwegian summer, waiting for the +early fishing hours at sunrise, I would remind myself that these rocks +and skerries outside of my native town were the last part of Norway on +which Holberg looked back when, under the press of a fair wind, his +swift barque carried him away to England, the fairyland of his westward +dreams. + + Adieu, adieu! my native shore + Fades o'er the water blue; + The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar, + And shrieks the wild sea mew. + +It was Norway's "Childe Harold"--the most solitary figure in our +cultural history--who was taking leave of his country, never to see her +rugged shores and her magnificent inland sceneries again. There was, +indeed, nothing poetical about him, for--as you know--the age was a +decidedly prosaic one, and Holberg, later in life, confessed that up to +the age of 30 "he would yawn when he heard the finest piece of poetry +read to him." Yet, as we can see him from our present vantage ground, he +was at that moment the embodiment of the genius of the Norwegian nation, +which once more, as in the saga period, hoisted its sails for Western +Europe, bold, eager of adventures, fascinated at the very thought of +getting away. + + +II. + +I want to lay stress on the Norwegian origin and education of Holberg, +on his stay among our peasantry in two characteristic parts of the +country, and also on the fact that he was over 21 when he left Norway +for ever. If these things were not indispensable for a fair conception +of his lifework, I should certainly not have dwelt on them. Yet a few +particulars are still wanted to give a finishing touch to his portrait. + +He set out in life with a delicate figure and an extremely youthful +appearance, but in return he was possessed of some solid, staunch +qualities which moulded him into a first-rate character. From his +mother, whose family is still numerously represented in Norway, he had +inherited a sound realism which made him firmly resolved to get a +position in life and to settle down comfortably on a fixed salary. From +his father, of whose family no trace is left among us, he had inherited +what has been called the itinerary element of his nature--his passion +for travelling, initiated by his early Fron journey, his eagerness to +see foreign countries, to stroll about in the big cities, to pass along +the high roads from one country into another, covering extraordinary +distances--an energetic student, a haunter of libraries, always on the +look-out for new books, but above anything else, always and everywhere, +a keen observer of men and things, enriching himself with knowledge from +the fresh, inexhaustible sources of life. + +Besides this, he was a true son of Bergen, the most heterogeneous town +of Norway--a sort of "Noah's Ark," according to his own expression--with +a development of its own which, in the course of centuries, has made the +natives of Bergen differ considerably in views and manners from the rest +of their countrymen. Even in our days these differences still make +themselves felt in some degree. All this you must bear in mind when you +speak about Holberg. The remarkable influence exercised upon him by +Bergen gives the clue to his personality--to his genius as a playwright, +to his liberal views as an historian, to his clear, realistic reasoning +as a philosopher. It is always Bergen, never Copenhagen, which is +uppermost in his mind. + +How excellently this young, highly-gifted Norwegian was prepared for a +thorough appreciation of contemporary England! + +During the forty-six years which had passed since the Restoration of +1660, England--as you will remember--had witnessed a period full of +political and literary activity, but above all, remarkable for its +prodigious advance in the field of science. This progress was, it is +true, a matter of European rather than of English concern, but the +inquiring spirit and the rationalist desire to get to the bottom of +things which were the hallmarks of the age were in no country developed +more strikingly than in England. Latin was still the language in which +scientific works were written, but the Royal Society had already +unfolded its national programme "of bringing all things as near the +mathematical plainness as possible, and of preferring the language of +artisans, countrymen and merchants to that of wits and scholars." + +The extraordinary events of the time also highly appealed to the +receptive mind of Holberg. When he arrived at Oxford in the spring of +1706, in the company of his friend, Mr. Brix, England was in the midst +of the Spanish War of Succession, of which--as we remember--he had got +some experiences on his Dutch journey. During a sojourn of nearly two +years, Holberg was a close observer of everything connected with the +great war. It was not so easy at that time as during the recent +Armageddon to get hold of the historical thread leading up to events and +to explain the facts by way of arguments; but he was impressed by the +dogged determination of the English in their heavy struggle against +Louis XIV., and their unswerving belief in a victorious issue. He +himself never doubted that they would win the war, thanks to their +splendid resources no less than to the very principles for which they +fought. In short, it is the prototype of the world's war by which we are +confronted--the Spirit of the West, the representative of the political +and intellectual liberty of the future struggling against absolutism and +all the reactionary powers of the past. + +As a matter of course, Holberg was a staunch pro-ally, and besides this, +he was also highly interested in the political events of the day. The +Union between England and Scotland which took place during his stay at +Oxford, strikes him as one of the most important acts of statesmanship +in any age--an event of far-reaching consequences--and he never gets +tired of commenting upon it and of subjecting it to new investigations. + +I do not presume to think that I can tell you anything new concerning +the conditions ruling at this University at the commencement of the +eighteenth century, but some brief particulars in connection with +Holberg's stay are of interest and importance for a fair understanding +of the moulding influence of Oxford upon his character and genius. + +Throughout the seventeenth century an increasing number of students from +Denmark and Norway had found their way to Oxford, "the most noble +theatre and emporium to all good sciences," to quote a contemporary +writer. From 1602 to 1683 the famous _Liber Peregrinorum_, or Admission +Index, shows a total of 112 names of Danish and Norwegian origin; during +the next twenty years, up to 1708, their number was 60, of which 46 were +Danes and 14 were Norwegians. These figures are interesting as an +unmistakable proof of the growing intercourse between the Dano-Norwegian +monarchy and England, which by this time had commenced to make itself +decidedly felt in the field of commerce. + +From the commencement of the eighteenth century, London, the famous fire +of which in 1666 had given a great impetus to the small timber ports of +South-Eastern Norway, became a city of growing importance to our +country. During their holidays the Norwegian Oxford students used to +spend their time in London, where there was a numerous colony of Danes +and Norwegians and a constant influx of seamen and merchants, especially +from South Norway. It was not, therefore, altogether by chance that +Holberg arrived in England. He sailed, in fact on the westward current +of the time. + +On their arrival at this University, April 18th, 1706, having covered +their way from Gravesend to London, and from London to Oxford on foot, +Holberg and his friend soon found out that their finances were at so low +an ebb that before they could proceed with their studies they had to +provide for their domestic necessities. Fortunately Oxford was no +particularly expensive place at that time, L40 a year being sufficient +to pull a man through, and Holberg was always very economical, and +understood remarkably well the difficult art of making both ends meet. +Yet their first months at Oxford were passed under very strained +conditions until Mr. Brix succeeded in getting a supply of money from a +banker in London. In the meantime, they had raised the necessary funds +themselves by giving lessons in music and languages, and it is a +characteristic evidence of Holberg's cleverness that, after the +departure of his friend, which took place comparatively soon, he managed +to study at Magdalen College for more than eighteen months, with no +other money than that obtained through his lessons as master of +languages and of the flute. + +The more you try to sound the marvellous authorship of Holberg the more +you feel convinced of the importance of his stay at Oxford. It would +require several lectures to trace the way in which his impressions and +his experiences of Oxford have moulded him as an historian, as a +playwright, as a philosopher and moralist. I can only tell you that he +took with him from this place to Copenhagen and to the Dano-Norwegian +community not only the conviction of his future mission, but practically +the very seeds of what should ripen into one of the richest crops in the +field of literature. If Macaulay had known Holberg he would have had to +give a somewhat different turn to his famous sentence: "France has been +the intermediary between England and Mankind." Holberg visited England +twenty-five years before Voltaire and twenty-four years before +Montesquieu, and brought back first hand views and impressions, sifted +only through the medium of his unbiassed mind. + +To put it briefly, Holberg has been the intermediary between England and +the North. + +At Oxford Holberg planned the work by which he started in literature in +1711: _Introduction to the History of the European Kingdoms_,[2] +containing a remarkable chapter on England and the English from the time +of the Romans down to 1702, with quotations from various authors, among +them Milton, William Camden, and Lord Clarendon. This work, against +which many objections have been raised and, to a certain extent, not +unjustly, nevertheless is stamped by the characteristic features of his +genius, so familiar to all Holberg students--his original way of +thinking, his contempt for all sorts of ostentatious learning blocking +the way by irrelevant facts, his plain language--vigorous, manly, with a +turn of its own--his sound judgment, and perhaps, above all, the +generally fair way in which he arraigns his persons before the tribunal +of history. + +Summing up his impressions and reminiscences twenty years later, Holberg +says in his autobiography: "_I confess that I have many reasons for +considering myself under great obligations to the Oxonians._" + +This is no phrase of politeness. It is the opinion of a man whose +correct and blameless demeanour, no less than his sincerity, his +loyalty, and his intellectual abilities, had won him the appreciation of +his professors and the friendship of his fellow-students. His English +was excellent, and he does not conceal the fact that he is a bit proud +of it. Indeed, it is somewhat of a sacrifice not to indulge in +quotations from Holberg's autobiography--particularly so at the point at +which we find ourselves now--for his description of his stay at Oxford +is highly attractive, not only from a literary but a human point of +view. Altogether his autobiography is a curiously fascinating work, of +which no one will repent making the acquaintance. It ought to reappear +in a modern English translation. + + +III. + +After an interesting decade the importance of which to the development +of Holberg's genius cannot be over-rated we meet him in 1718 as +Professor of Metaphysics in Copenhagen University. After having left +Oxford in 1708 he had--to sum up the period as briefly as +possible--spent his time in studies at home and in travels abroad. He +never revisited England, but he lived and rooted in the English world of +thought, and whether in Germany, in Paris, in Rome, or at Copenhagen, he +studied and reasoned on the basis of his Oxford experiences. His +principal work from this period, _Introduction to the Law of Nature and +of Nations_, although little more than an abridgement of Pufendorf's +great work on the same subject, is interesting as a proof of his +independent views and his patriotic ambitions as an historian. + +It would be an exaggeration unworthy of the reserved way in which +Holberg used to express himself, to say that he owed everything to +England. He was certainly also highly indebted to France. Setting apart +what he owes to Holland, Germany and Italy, I think we may square the +debt by saying that while England moulded his character and gave the +first impetus to his genius as an historian, France chiefly contributed +to the unfolding of his genius as a humorous writer. He is the Moliere +of the North and, no doubt, one of the greatest dramatic authors ever +born. + +In 1719 Holberg's genius, which, until then, had kept strictly within +the rules prescribed by his professorship, apparently cool and +indifferent to the outside world, suddenly burst into a fit of laughter +which resounded through the North. This was his immortal heroic poem, +_Peder Paars_, which appeared in the autumn of 1719, and which marks +nothing less than a new era in Norwegian and Danish literature. + +_Peder Paars_, like Ibsen's _Peer Gynt_, the only parallel in our +literature, is written in verse. Ibsen's rhymes are stamped by his +mastership of form, and move in shifting stanzas according to the +requirements of the situation and the emotion they are intended to +create. Holberg walks throughout his poem on the high-heeled +Alexandrines of the age. _Peer Gynt_ is the embodiment of the Norwegian +soul--Norway, as seen from within. _Peder Paars_ is the central gallery +of contemporary Denmark, with all its queer figures--Denmark, as seen +from without. That is why Holberg could never have written _Peder Paars_ +if he had been born and bred a Dane. He had to be an outsider to get the +right perspective. + +The gist of the poem is quickly told. Peder Paars, a plain Danish +citizen of a provincial town, wants to visit his sweetheart at some +other provincial town a few miles off. He has to go by sea, of course, +for Denmark, as you know, is pre-eminently a country composed of isles, +and, like Odysseus and Aeneas, he has some mighty enemies among the +immortal gods who will not allow him to complete his very reasonable +journey. He is shipwrecked and washed ashore with his followers on +Anholt, the very smallest of all Danish isles. His experiences in this +place form the chief part of the poem, for in this little, +out-of-the-way island Holberg gives us, as it were, contemporary Denmark +in a nutshell. Finally, the goddess of love pities him; he succeeds in +making his escape from Anholt, and arrives subsequently at Jutland, +where he has another series of remarkable experiences. Like Peer Gynt, +he is put into a mad-house, but some time afterwards he is released and +is escorted in triumph out of town. The last glimpse we get of him is +where he is made a soldier and has to strip himself of all he is +possessed of in order to be set free and become a civilian again. Here +the poem ends abruptly, unfinished, as if the author has got tired; but +the torso stands out as the work of a genius, and for two centuries it +has stood the test of time and towers still as one of the most imposing +works of fiction in Northern literature. + +Holberg had a double purpose with _Peder Paars_. By the form he chose he +intended to aim a decisive blow at the learned apparatus of classic +poetry as we meet it, especially in Homer and Virgil. There was at that +time a lively discussion going on in England and France as to whether +classic or modern poetry ought to be preferred, and both views had their +eager advocates and opponents. Holberg, as you may easily imagine, sided +with the defenders of modern literature, partly because, being a true +son of the age to which he belonged, he was as indifferent to the fresh +originality of Homer as he was untouched by the high-sounding imitation +of Virgil, and in his poem he mixes them up in a most disrespectful way. + +What is considerably more important to us than the form of his poem is, +however, the substance of it. The former belongs to the taste of an age +which has disappeared long ago; the latter is--as I have already +suggested--a cultural portrait of contemporary Denmark, and at the same +time a marvellous gallery full of human characters, stamped by the +eternal mark of life itself. Holberg, like Hamlet, was of opinion that +there was "something rotten in the state of Denmark," and he made up his +mind to set her right by the sound cure of irony. He could have chosen +no better remedy; for, in fact, the community in which he found himself +was not disgraced by vices which preyed on the very pith of the nation +and endangered its future. The chief fault with it was that owing to a +development which forms a highly-interesting chapter in the cultural +history of the country--but which it would take too long to +detail--Denmark, as Holberg found her two centuries ago, was about to be +stifled by an atmosphere of pedantry, humbug, hypocrisy and unsound +ambition. Surrounded by laws and orders in council which interfered with +their daily life in the most foolish way and increased the number of +misdemeanants, the Danish people was about to lose its self-respect and +absorb itself in an indiscriminate imitation of foreign nations. +Holberg's keen glance pierced through all this foolery into the very +depth of the national character. He saw that the Danish people was sound +at the core, and he therefore merrily divested it of one piece of these +masquerade garments after the other. He wanted to show the people among +which he lived that life is truth, not humbug, and that instead of the +comfortable advice: Disguise! hide! there is the more noble appeal: Be +thyself, and fear not! + +There is a whole literature on _Peder Paars_ in Norwegian and Danish, +and it is only fair to say that opinions of the critics vary as to the +intrinsic value of the different parts of the poem from a literary point +of view. On the other hand, full credit is given to the poem from a +cultural standpoint. Generally speaking, _Peder Paars_ is not only the +first dazzling display of Holberg's genius as a humorous and satirical +writer; it also reveals him as the future playwright, who within a few +years was to send pit, boxes and galleries into fits of laughter. + +Indeed, we may ask the question: Was there ever in any country a +professor of metaphysics with so adequate a store of humour and with a +more irresistible fancy to display it? + + +IV. + +Holberg as a dramatic author is certainly one of the most interesting +chapters in the history of Norwegian and Danish literature, and none has +been subjected to a more searching examination. + +It is admitted by all critics that he is indebted to the famous +playwrights of ancient Rome--Plautus and Terentius--and he certainly +also owes something to the Italian comedy with which he had become +acquainted both in Italy and in Paris. His relation to Moliere whom he +admired very much has been a matter of discussion, even in France, and +there are in some of his plays characters and scenes which remind one of +the English dramatists of the Restoration. But he never stooped to mere +imitation. The comedies which have established his fame all bear the +indelible stamp of his originality and of his genius. + +Let us take a short review of some of the most famous of his comedies. + +First you make the acquaintance of the _Tinker Politician_--a typical +representative of the time, so occupied with speculations and +discussions on public affairs that he has no time to look after his own +trade. It consequently goes from bad to worse. He is the central figure +in a self-appointed board of Blue-Apron Politicians--a saddler, a +cutler, a wig-maker, and so on. They are over head and ears in politics, +discussing the events of the Spanish War of Succession, giving advice to +Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough or denouncing their +dispositions, while expounding the most startling historical theories +and making the most absurd geographical assertions. They are also +eagerly taking down their own authorities. + +Holberg has been so cautious as to make Hamburg the scene of his comedy, +for it would certainly not have been tolerated if the action had been +made to take place at Copenhagen. Some of the remarks made by the +characters of the play have, therefore, retained a wonderful actuality. +By way of example: "Indeed, those people don't see what is to the true +benefit of Germany." Replacing the word Germany by the word Denmark we +see, however, the homely, eighteenth-century address quite clearly. + +In the third act the _Tinker Politician_ is most unexpectedly appointed +Burgomaster of Hamburg--a sham appointment, of course, arranged by some +persons who wish to play a practical joke on him in order to put his +remarkable political qualities and his much-boasted administrative +faculties to the test. It need hardly be said that his burgomastership +which, by the way, only lasts twenty-four hours, filled up with constant +embarrassments, disillusionments and mortifications, finally turns out a +complete failure. He is just about to hang himself in a fit of despair +when he is informed of the joke which has been played upon him. He +rejoices in his good luck, denounces his political vanity in a verse +which has become classic, and the moral of which may be expressed in the +old proverb: "The shoemaker should stick to his last." + +In another play we meet _Jean de France_, a Copenhagen cousin of _The +Gentleman Dancing Master_, as Wycherly presents him in one of his +wittiest plays. His name is Hans Frandsen, a Danish family name--plain +and unpretentious. But Hans has been ten weeks in Paris and has returned +with his name translated. He mixes his Danish with French words and +phrases in the most ridiculous way, trespassing against all the rules of +French Grammar. He quite impresses his father and mother by his +high-sounding name, his Parisian manners, and his _air de grand +seigneur_, but his would-be father-in-law informs him very plainly that +he is an old-fashioned Danish citizen who means to stand no nonsense, +and who will never give his daughter to a fool. Through a practical joke +played upon Jean de France by means of the clever maid servant, who +pretends to have left Paris for Copenhagen with the sole purpose of +seeing him and enjoying his company, his ridiculousness is so amply +proved that he ultimately resolves to shake off the dust of Denmark from +his feet and return to fair France. The moral of the play may be +expressed in the old saying: All is not gold that glitters--and the +substance of it is to serve as a warning against the bad custom of the +time of sending young people abroad before they have developed the +necessary amount of self-knowledge and commonsense to profit by their +stay. + +In _Jacob von Thyboc_ or _The Bragging Soldier_, we meet a +highly-developed specimen of "the military fool." I think this comedy +stands out as one of the most daring attacks in any literature on the +military profession. It is a picture of early eighteenth-century +militarism in its worst form, redeemed by no sympathetic feature, the +Danish army being at that time practically flooded by German officers, +bragging and swearing, mixing German and Danish in the most horrible +way, scolding and flogging their soldiers, but at the emergency cowards, +eager to save their skins. + +As a matter of course, Holberg also introduces to us what we may call +"the Latin fool." His name is _Erasmus Montanus_--an unsurpassable +translation of the plain Danish name, Rasmus Berg. He exhibits his +learning as a constant display of paradoxes and gives only one evidence +of sound judgment and insight. Erasmus is capable of proving that his +mother is a stone, because a stone cannot fly, nor can his mother; but +as the poor peasant woman gets afraid of this astounding metamorphosis +and already thinks her legs are turning cold, he graciously comforts her +by the assurance that she can think and speak, which a stone cannot. +"Consequently you are no stone, mother!" He can also prove by several +arguments that children are entitled to thrash their old parents, one of +the arguments being that you have to restore what has been bestowed upon +you. It serves him right when the whole parish finally rises against +him, not because of all these foolish assertions, but because of the +only theory in which he is perfectly right, and which he proves by fair +arguments, that of the earth being round. On this point he has to give +in and admit that the earth is flat like a pancake--the only condition +on which the father of his sweetheart will give his consent to the +marriage. + +In the _Lying-in Room_, a most curious portrait of contemporary customs +and manners in connection with such a daily event as the birth of a +child--we find ourselves in a female gallery, unsurpassed in any +literature for variety, liveliness and realism. It might be worthy of a +whole lecture on what would certainly prove a highly interesting +subject: Holberg and the Fair Sex. + +May I finally mention as perhaps the most deeply human of all his +comedies, _Jeppe on the Hill_ or _The Transformed Peasant_. It is a +representation of a practical joke played on a poor peasant who is found +in a field near the high road, senselessly intoxicated. He is +subsequently brought to the mansion, put into his lordship's bed and +garbed with his lordship's finest nightshirt. He awakes and believes +himself in Paradise, is treated as a Lord by the real owner of the +mansion whose sham servility makes him behave himself insolently, and is +once more intoxicated and replaced where he was found in his old dirty +clothes. He is then accused of intrusion and violent behaviour at the +mansion, sentenced formally to death, and subjected, when asleep, under +the influence of a drug, to a sham execution, the rope being fastened +under his arms instead of round his neck. He is finally lowered from the +gallows, and brought back to life by the same authorities who have +sentenced him to death, after which he is dismissed with a few +shillings--and the bitter conviction that he has been treated as a +plaything by the Lord of the mansion. + +The low social level of the Danish peasantry in Holberg's days which +contrasted so unfavourably with the social standing of the Norwegian +peasants; the state of drunkenness to which they stooped in consequence +of the physical and moral humiliations to which they were subjected, and +which they wished to forget; the commonsense and keen power of +reflection of which they nevertheless were possessed and to which +Holberg has paid the famous tribute: "I never speak with peasants +without learning something from them"--all this has combined to make +Jeppe perhaps the most famous person in the Holberg gallery, conquering +generation after generation by his inexhaustible flow of life. + +It has justly been said by the famous Danish poet, Oehlenschlaeger +(1779-1850) that if we might imagine that every document and record +bearing upon Denmark at the commencement of the eighteenth century +suddenly vanished from the earth with the sole exception of Holberg's +comedies, it would yet be possible to reconstruct the Danish community +of the time on the basis of them. This assertion is no exaggeration, but +nevertheless it only contains a half truth. + +In their outward appearance Holberg's comedies are Danish--customs and +manners, names and scenery being contemporary Danish portraits hailing +from Copenhagen or from the province--but from within they are +unmistakably Norwegian. In fact, the typical characters of the Holberg +gallery are not only his compatriots; they are natives of Bergen like +himself. The old-fashioned gentleman, Jeronimus, narrow-minded, but +possessed of a solid stock of commonsense which will stand no nonsense +from the younger generation; his wife Magdelone, who has some +recollections of a merry youth and is not altogether proof against +relapses into former extravagances; Henrik, the clever servant with the +ever-inventive brain, the champion of the rights of youth; Pernille, the +witty chamber-maid, alternately impertinent and obsequious, but always +beaming with mirth, sure of a safe, however narrow, escape--every one of +them, as well as a number of less important characters, are stamped by +their own dear, queer town. You may even meet them in the streets of +Bergen to-day. It was not therefore by chance that the national stage of +Norway was founded at Bergen in the middle of the nineteenth century. +The city in which Holberg was born and in which his persons moved about +in life, quite naturally became the birthplace of the Norwegian scenic +art, and it is the lasting honour of the actors and actresses of the +_Bergen National Stage_--still the official name of the theatre of the +city--to have contributed to build up a Holberg tradition, which has +been further developed by actors and actresses from other parts of the +country, chiefly at the Christiania Theatre and its artistic heir the +National Theatre at Christiania. + + +V. + +In 1728 Copenhagen was devastated by a fire, the extent of which, +comparatively speaking, can only be likened to the famous fire of London +sixty-two years earlier, to which I have already made a reference. In +its consequences, it was even more far-reaching. It closes a chapter of +high political and cultural interest in the history of the +Dano-Norwegian monarchy, and opens a new one, imbued with an entirely +different spirit, the characteristic features of which were Pietism and +Germanism. Denmark, and more especially Copenhagen, became an +intellectual province of Germany, customs and manners being stamped by +the new religious movement, and ordinary life surrounded by a serenity +which closed the door on all pleasures and enjoyments. It goes without +saying that theatrical performances were considered most sinful, and +that, even if the national stage had not had to go into bankruptcy some +years before the fire, playgoing would have been promptly forbidden +along with balls, masquerades, and other public and private +entertainments. + +Under these circumstances Holberg who, not long ago had published his +autobiography as a sort of apology--a literary event which, for various +reasons, has been very much discussed by Holberg students--had to give +up his activity as a playwright and turn to a work more in conformity +with his position as a professor in the University of Copenhagen. But +before he did so, he felt it his duty to inform the public that he was +the author of the comedies which had hitherto appeared under the +fictitious name of a citizen of a provincial town. He certainly did not +tell the public anything new by this information, but he impressed it +favourably and, what is more important still, he has profited by it in +the eyes of posterity. We are pleased to learn, through the authority of +Holberg himself on the eve of his long silence as a playwright, that he +admits the authorship of his immortal comedies in face of enemies whose +machinations might have overthrown him from behind, if he had not turned +round to meet them and confronted them with an open visage. + +In 1730 Holberg was appointed Professor of History, and for the next +sixteen years, covering the whole of the reign of Christian VI., he +displays the activity of an historian, an essayist, and a philosophical +writer--another proof of the remarkable versatility of his genius. +Within recent years this phase of Holberg's authorship has been +subjected to a close and interesting examination, especially by +Norwegian Holberg students, and many valuable features, adding to the +correctness of Holberg's portrait as an author and as a man, have been +established beyond doubt. His historical works, obsolete though they are +and superseded by modern contributions, are imbued with the same spirit +as _Peder Paars_ and the _Comedies_. In his _History of Denmark_ +(I.-III.) his greatest and most mature work; in his _Description of +Denmark and Norway_; in his _Description of Bergen_; in his _General +History of the Church_; in his _History of Heroes_ and in his _History +of Heroines_, to mention only the most important historical works of +this part of his life, in all of them we discover the same qualities +which struck us as characteristic features in his first work, deepened +by his experiences and sharpened by his superior faculty of observation. +In particular, we notice the light thread of irony running through the +whole tissue of his reflection and composition, stamping argument and +style alike by the irresistible humour of his genius. It is as if the +playwright is constantly casting a glance on the manuscript over the +shoulder of the historian, and as if merry Thalia always takes a fancy +to tease her serene sister Kalliope. + +In the midst of his learned studies Holberg, in a relapse, as it were, +to his former satirical humour, surprised the public by a work which +very soon got international reputation. It appeared at Leipzig in 1741, +in Latin, under the title of _Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum_, and was +promptly translated into a number of European languages, among them +English. The first English translation of _Niels Klim_ dates from 1742; +the next from 1828.[3] It ought to reappear in a new translation, and be +included among the World's Classics, for next to _Gulliver's Travels_ +there is hardly a work in any literature to which it can be adequately +compared. + +Niels Klim is a Norwegian student--from Bergen, course--who, after +having taken his degrees at the University of Copenhagen, both in +theology and philosophy, has "returned penniless from the temple of the +Muses, like all other Norwegian students." Strolling about one day among +the hills which surround the city, he comes across a big cavern, +remarkable "from time immemorial" for a continual groaning caused by the +circulation of the air which is being drawn into the hole and again +expelled. He makes up his mind to investigate the phenomenon and a few +days later, assisted by four labourers, with rope and boat-hooks he +makes his descent, being lowered gently down the centre of the hole. +Unfortunately the rope suddenly snaps when he is only 12 feet down, and +in the midst of a thick darkness Mr. Klim, with tremendous rapidity, +falls straight through the globe until he ultimately finds himself +perfectly unhurt on another planet. He is startled at discovering that +the inhabitants of the country, the name of which is _Potu_, are walking +trees, moving about with an extreme slowness and gravity. He afterwards +finds out that the mental qualities of the Potuites are in every respect +in conformity with their outward appearance. + +Potu is England, as Holberg saw it--and wished to see it--and in the +local description of it we quickly discover scenes of an unmistakable +English kind. The Potuites are possessed of a highly conservative +temper, but at the same time they are imbued with a true liberal spirit, +which makes their institutions, customs and manners--in short, their +community as a whole--contrast favourably with the communities of +contemporary Europe. + +In Potu there are no religious quarrels, because the whole creed of the +population is contained in a few, easily intelligible, and very concise +sentences. There are no "suffragettes" either, to use a modern term, for +the women enjoy all the rights which among the European nations, are +bestowed upon men alone. A highly esteemed widow holds the office of +Minister of Finance; an elderly unmarried lady is Chief Justice--both to +the perfect satisfaction of their compatriots. The sciences taught at +the academies of Potu are History, Economy, Mathematics and +Jurisprudence. Medicine is considered superfluous, as an academic +science, owing to the temperate and regular habits of the Potuites, +while Metaphysics is strictly prohibited, those inclined to such studies +being promptly banished to the interior of the firmament. The government +of Potu is based upon the principles of absolutism, but as the Princes +always rule strictly in accordance with the principle of justice and +there is a perfect equality among the citizens--all ranks and titles +having been abolished centuries ago--the Potuites are very pleased with +the state of public affairs and do not want any change. It is not +absolutely prohibited to make proposals tending to change the existing +conditions, but reformers had better take care before launching their +proposals, for if they are deemed futile by the commission appointed to +consider them, the schemer is sure to be hanged. + +Mr. Klim, who is considered too versatile to hold any office of +importance in the Principality of Potu, is vexed to see himself +entrusted with the office of a royal courier, for which the Potuites +find him excellently fitted owing to his fast legs. In this capacity he +travels all over the principality, having a number of remarkable +experiences, visiting, among other places, the famous site of learning +of Keba, the subterraneous Oxford. Unfortunately, Mr. Klim cannot +control his European ambition as a reformer, but owing to his foreign +origin and his inexperience, he escapes the gallows and is expelled +instead. He subsequently arrives in the Republic of Martinia, the +inhabitants of which form the most complete contrast to the Potuites. +The Martinians are apes, and in their country, which, as can easily be +seen, is meant to be a sort of underground France, everything goes with +a tremendous speed. Proposals and schemes of every kind are flying +about; the number of schemers is unlimited; innovations are hailed with +rapture, their popularity being always in proportion to their +foolishness. Mr. Klim becomes the hero of Martinia and is considered a +true benefactor of the nation when he invents the wig, which is promptly +adopted by the Martinians. Unfortunately a Martinian lady, the wife of +one of the most prominent men of the Republic, falls in love with him, +and as he declines her advances, her love is changed into hatred and she +gets him banished from the country. + +After a series of remarkable adventures Mr. Klim ultimately lands in +Quama, the inhabitants of which are human beings at a very low level of +civilisation, among whom he appears in the quality of a reformer. In +Quama he discovers a highly interesting manuscript, the work of a +Quamite, describing his experiences in a European journey. It is a +first-rate eighteenth century satire on European conditions and the +customs and manners of the principal countries of Europe. Even here +Holberg's predilection for England does not fail. The English, I think +you will be pleased to learn, are let off most easily. Like his +countryman, Peer Gynt, a century later, though under somewhat different +conditions, Mr. Klim ultimately is chosen Emperor by the Quamites, but +this proves to be too much for him. His ambition very soon passes all +reasonable limits and his reign only knows the two alternatives: +World-power or Downfall. It need hardly be said that the latter becomes +the natural issue, and as a dethroned monarch he has to hide himself in +a deep cavern to escape the rage of his embittered subjects, whom he has +utterly duped and destroyed. Suddenly he loses his footing and falls +with a tremendous rapidity through the earth the opposite way to that by +which he arrived on the underground planet. He naturally lands again +outside of Bergen and ends his days as a modest parish clerk, although +never forgetting that once upon a time he used to be an Underground +Emperor. + +Niels Klim is, no doubt, the highest revelation of Holberg's genius. We +find in it all the humour of _Peder Paars_ and the _Comedies_; his sound +judgment and his keenness of observation as an historian; his +broad-mindedness as a philosopher; his tolerance as a moralist. As a +work of fiction, it yields to none in exuberant phantasy, and the +imperturbable calmness of the argument and of the style only adds to its +worth. + +In 1746 the reign of Pietism came to an end on the death of Christian +VI. The accession to the throne of his frivolous, intemperate son, +Frederick V., whose first wife was a daughter of George II., inaugurated +a new era. All gates of enjoyment were at once thrown open. Hymn-books +and Bibles were flung away, and people crowded to theatres, masquerades, +dancing halls and other entertainments. Holberg's dramatic vein began to +flow again after a twenty years' ebb, but the comedies of his closing +years can in no way be compared to those which he produced in the +hey-day of his life. More valuable to us than these comedies is the +series of smaller essays in the form of _Epistles_ (five volumes), and +_Moral Thoughts_ (two volumes), which he wrote in these years along with +a number of minor, and we may also say, inferior works. These volumes +are still a rich source of information to Holberg students. In none of +his works do we get a more intimate personal acquaintance with him. We +learn to know him in his modest, lonely, every-day life; his sympathies +and his antipathies; "the anfractuosities of his mind and of his +temper," which were certainly no less obvious than Samuel Johnson's; his +corporal frailties; his mental recreations. He is, in a certain way, his +own Boswell--less obtrusive, however, and, as a consequence, more +concise. There is no subject so insignificant that he thinks it below +his dignity to discuss it; there is none so exalted that he refrains +from expressing his opinion upon it. He tells us as willingly why he +prefers a cat to a dog, and what a real shoemaker ought to know--as he +tells us his opinion on God and eternity; the destination of man and the +supposed greatness of the popular heroes of history whom, by the way, he +is more inclined to consider as the mischief makers of mankind and the +squanderers of its economic wealth. Through the whole of this wonderful +collection of essays we breathe what Hamlet would call "the eager and +the nipping air" of originality, invigorating by its draught of +commonsense and moral responsibility. We easily forgive him that some +of his views are obsolete, for in other respects he is far ahead of his +time, and by his unbiassed attitude leaves even the most advanced +spirits of his age behind him. + +How splendidly--only to mention one example--he is able to grasp a +character like that of Cromwell! At a time when Cromwell was generally +considered one of the most abominable personalities in history and a +disgrace to his nation; when Hume and Voltaire vied with each other in +misunderstanding him, both being of opinion that Cromwell's character +was broadly that of a shrewd and daring hypocrite,[4] Holberg was no +less convinced of the true genius of the Protector than of his personal +good faith and of his patriotic ambition. + +"The greatest gifts of nature," he says, "every one of which would make +a man prominent in comparison with others were, to an equal degree, +concentrated in Cromwell. He seems to have received something from all +nations, for one saw in him Italian shrewdness and cunning, French +swiftness, English courage and Spanish firmness. He founded his fabric +with cunning; he puts his machine in action with rapidity; by his +courage he was victorious everywhere.... It may be said that his +wonderful deeds and his great name were sufficient to keep his internal +and external enemies in subjection, for as he was hated by all, so he +was also admired by all.... Cromwell ranks with those few men whom +nature seems to have exhausted herself in moulding."[5] + +I think you will admit that this is an extraordinary tribute to the +memory of the Protector, considering that it was written in 1749 by a +loyal subject of an absolute monarch, who had to weigh his words +carefully when speaking about a regicide. Anyhow, Holberg's essay is the +first scientific rehabilitation of Cromwell before Carlyle. + +Five years later--energetic and active as ever and, above all, +remarkably receptive to the new ideas of the time, and eager to subject +them to a close examination--Holberg quietly breathed his last. He died +on January 28th, 1754, at the age of 69, in his city residence at +Copenhagen. Lonely as he had been in life, his death was barely noticed, +and a few years later one of his more intelligent contemporaries remarks +with regret, that he seems to be almost entirely forgotten. Holberg +certainly did not expect anything in the way of public mourning and +official obsequies on the part of the community in which he felt himself +an alien, and upon the mind of which the greatness of his lifework had +not yet dawned; but even what may be called the decorum of indifference +was absent on this occasion. + +Yet time has brought its revenge. Before the expiration of the +eighteenth century Holberg's work was in a fair way to being +acknowledged. From the 'thirties of last century it rose rapidly in +esteem. The bi-centenary jubilee of his birth, which was celebrated all +over Norway and Denmark on December 3rd, 1884, gave a lasting impetus to +his fame. His commanding position in literature was established for all +time. + +In his article on Holberg in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (Vol. +XIII.), Mr. Edmund Gosse justly says: "Holberg was, with the exception +of Voltaire, the first writer in Europe in two generations. Neither Pope +nor Swift, who perhaps exceeded him in particular branches of +literature, approached him in range of genius or in encyclopaedic +versatility. Holberg found Denmark"--Mr. Gosse might have added _and +Norway_--"without books. He wrote a library for her" (_i.e._, +_them_) ... "He filled the shelves of the citizens with works in their +own tongue ... all written in a true and manly style and representing +the extreme attainment of European culture at the moment." + +In this appreciation we all heartily agree. Therefore, wherever you go +in Denmark and Norway Holberg's name is familiar. Words and sayings of +his live on the lips of both nations as colloquial terms. He sits in +bronze in an arm-chair outside the main entrance of the Royal Theatre at +Copenhagen; his noble sepulchre is at Soroe, a dreaming little site of +learning in Zeeland. He looks down from his pedestal upon the busy life +of the Bergen fishmarket, leaning upon his walking stick as if he was +about to make a remark. Over the portico of the National Theatre at +Christiania, facing the square, his name is inscribed in golden letters +between those of Ibsen and Bjoernson. It is the ambition of all comic +actors in Norway and Denmark to appear in one of the chief characters of +his immortal gallery. He is in high favour with the public, who applaud +him with mirth and laughter; he is the pride of his townsmen, who +cherish his memory in a special _Holberg Club_. And in the silent +libraries students carefully turn over the leaves of his works to find +out new aspects of his genius and of his personality. In fact, the +Holberg literature is increasing year by year. + +Yet there is one thing wanting. He must be better known abroad, +especially in this country. He must become one of the world's classics +and find his way to the book-shelves of British homes. + +More than seventy years ago _Welhaven_, one of the greatest Norwegian +poets of the nineteenth century, in a noble poem summed up the position +of Holberg and our obligation to him in a verse which may be rendered +thus in English: + + _And therefore, like a gem with precious gleam, + His name shall live in high and old esteem, + And Northern men with tender care shall save + His noble image from oblivion's grave._ + +I have only a few words to add to these stanzas. Just as we Norwegians +have learnt to look upon Ludvig Holberg--in no other light we want you +English to see him. He is one of the highest revelations of the Spirit +of the West and, at the same time, the most precious link in the ancient +chain of sympathy between England and Norway. + + + + +HOLBERG LITERATURE AND HOLBERG STUDENTS. + +(BRIEF SUMMARY.) + + +Notwithstanding the many highly interesting works both in Norwegian and +Danish bearing upon the importance and the position of Holberg, no +complete _Life of Holberg_ has as yet been written in either language. +We are entitled to ask the question: Will there ever be an adequate one? + +As far as Norway is concerned, the most important Holberg students of +the nineteenth century are: Olaf Skavlan (1838-1891); Ludvig Daae +(1834-1910), and J. E. Sars (1835-1917), all of whom were professors in +the University of Christiania. In the same connection may be mentioned +Henrik Jaeger (1854-1895), the author of the well-known _Illustreret +Norsk Literaturhistoric_, in the first volume of which there is a +valuable outline of Holberg's life and works along with a short +reference to the Holberg literature (down to 1896), not only in the +Norwegian, Danish and Swedish languages, but also in German. + +Among the Norwegian Holberg students of to-day, Mr. Viljam Olsvig, M.A., +holds the most conspicuous place. In a number of works published within +the last twenty odd years, largely bearing upon the connection between +Holberg and England, he may fairly be said to have given a new impetus, +and even a new turn, to the study of Holberg. Messrs. Francis Bull, +Ph.D., and Sigurd Hoest, M.A., have, within the last few years, thrown +new light on Holberg as an historian; at the same time, the Rev. Ludvig +Selmer has subjected Holberg's moral and religious conception of life to +a close and interesting examination. Messrs. Just Bing, Ph.D., and +Nordahl Olsen, a Bergen editor, have added valuable information to our +former knowledge of Holberg in connection with his native town. + +The contributions of Denmark to the Holberg literature are entitled to a +fair acknowledgment on the part of Norway, and we certainly are greatly +indebted both to the Danish Holberg students of the middle of last +century (above all, E. C. Werlauff, 1781-1871) and the Holberg students +of to-day (including Professor Georg Brandes and Professor Vilhelm +Andersen) for the excellent way in which they have explained Holberg to +us from a Danish point of view. + +A complete list of Holberg's works (original and translations) is +contained in the British Museum's _Catalogue of Printed Books_ (Vol. +XXIX.), 1889. + + + + +HOLYWELL PRESS + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Epistola ad virum per illustrem._ An English translation of this +work under the title of _Memoirs of Lewis Holberg, written by Himself in +Latin, and now first translated into English_, was published in London +(Hunt & Clarke), 1827. + +[2] In 1733 Holberg published a brief "Synopsis" in Latin, partly based +on this work. In 1755 the Synopsis was translated into English by +Gregory Sharp, LL.D., Fellow of the Royal Society, the translation being +dedicated to the then Prince of Wales, afterwards George III. (A second +edition, "corrected and enlarged," appeared in 1758.) In 1787 a new +revised English edition of the Synopsis was published by William +Radcliffe, A.B., of Oriel College, Oxford. Both translators are +unanimous in their praise of the original, Radcliffe describing it as _a +work which by its disposition and arrangement in the matter of history +has been eminently useful to young students and is approved by the +highest Orders of literature_. + +[3] The complete title of the later translation is: _Journey to the +World Underground, Being the subterraneous Travel of Niels Klim_. +Translated from the Latin of Lewis Holberg, London. Published by Thomas +North, 66 Paternoster Row, 1828. + +[4] Voltaire, in his _Siecle de Louis XIV._, Chap. II (1752), says: +"Cromwell ... portant l'Evangile dans une main; l'epee dans l'autre, le +masque de religion sur le visage ... couvrit des qualites d'un grand roi +tous les crimes d'un ursurpateur." In his _Essai sur les Moeurs_, Chap. +clxxxi. (1757), Voltaire speaks of Cromwell as a man who "parvint a se +faire roi sous un autre nom par sa valeur, secondee de son hypocrisie." +Hume, in his _History of England_, Chap. lx. (1754) describes Cromwell +as a man who, "transported to a degree of madness with religious +ecstasies, never forgot the purposes to which they might serve ... +secretly paving the way by artifice and courage to his own unlimited +authority." + +[5] The essay, from which the above is a quotation, was published for +the first time in English in the _English Historical Review_, vol. +xxxii., page 412-415 (1917), with an introduction by Mr. R. Laache, +M.A., Christiania. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: + + + Text in italics is enclosed with underscores: _italics_. + + Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from + the original. + + Punctuation has been corrected without note. + + Obvious typographical errors have been corrected as follows: + Page 34: duplicate word "a" removed. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ludvig Holberg, The Founder of +Norwegian Literature and an Oxford Student, by Simon Christian Hammer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LUDVIG HOLBERG *** + +***** This file should be named 37177.txt or 37177.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/1/7/37177/ + +Produced by David E. 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