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: