Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/67

Rh this time no plays had been acted in Denmark except in French and German, but Holberg now determined to use his talent in the construction of Danish comedy. The first of his original pieces performed was Den politiske Kand- stober (The Pewterer turned Politician) ; he wrote other comedies with miraculous rapidity, and before 1722 was closed, there had been performed in succession, and with immense success, Den Ycegelsindede (The Waverer), Jean de France, Jeppe pact, Bjerget, and Gert the Westphalian. Of these five plays, four at least are masterpieces ; and they were almost immediately followed by others. Holberg took no rest, and before the end of 1723 the comedies of Barselstuen (The Lying-in Room), The Eleventh of July, Jakob von Thyboe, Den Bundeslose (The Fidget), Erasmus Montanus, Don Ranudo, Ulysses of Ithaca, Without Head or Tail, Witchcraft, and Melampe had all been written, and some of them acted. In 1724 the most famous comedy that Holberg produced was Henrik and Pernille. But in spite of this unprecedented blaze of dramatic genius the theatre fell into pecuniary difficulties, and had to be closed, Holberg composing for the last night s perform ance a Funeral of Danish Comedy. All this excessive labour for the stage had undermined the great poet s health, and in 1725 he determined to take the baths at Aix-la- Chapelle ; but instead of going thither he wandered through Belgium to Paris, and spent the winter there. In the spring he returned to Copenhagen with recovered health and spirits, and worked quietly at his protean literary labours until the great fire of 1728. In the period of national poverty and depression that followed this event, a puritanical spirit came into vogue which was little in sympathy with Holberg s dramatic or satiric genius. He therefore closed his career as a dramatic poet by publishing in 1731 his acted comedies, with the addition of five which he had no opportunity of putting on the stage. With characteristic versatility, he adopted the serious tone of the new age, and busied himself for the next twenty years with historical, philosophical, and statistical writings. During this period he published his Description of Denmark and Norway (1729), History of Denmark, Universal Church History, Biographies of Famous Men, Moral Reflections, Description of Bergen (1737), A History of the Jews, and other learned and laborious compilations. The only poem he published at this time was the famous Nicolai Klimii Iter Subterraneum, 1741, afterwards translated into Danish by Baggesen. When Christian VI. died in 1748, the theatre was reopened and Holberg was appointed director, but he soon resigned this arduous post. His last published work was his Epistles, in 5 vols. In 1747 he was made B;iron af Holberg. In August 1753 he took to his bed, and he died at Copenhagen on the 28th of January 1754, in the seventieth year of his age. He was buried at Soro, in Zealand. He had never married, and he bequeathed all his property, which was considerable, to Soro College. Holberg was not only the founder of Danish literature and the greatest of Danish authors, but he was, with the exception of Voltaire, the first writer in Europe during his own generation. Neither Pope nor Swift, who perhaps excelled him in particular branches of literary production, approached him in range of genius, or in encyclopaedic versatility. Holberg found Denmark provided with no books, and he wrote a library for her. When he arrived in the country, the Danish language was never heard in a gentleman s house. Polite Danes were wont to say that a man wrote Latin to his friends, talked French to the ladies, called his dogs in German, and only used Danish to swear at his servants. The single genius of Holberg revolutionized this system. He wrote poems of all kinds in a language hitherto employed only for ballads and hymns ; he instituted a theatre, and composed a rich collection of comedies for it ; he filled the shelves of the citizens with works in their own tongue on history, law, politics, science, philology, and philosophy, all written in a true and manly style, and representing the extreme attainment of European culture at the moment. Perhaps no author who ever lived has had so vast an influence over his countrymen, an influence that is still at work after 200 years.

1em  HOLCROFT, (1745–1809), dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was born 10th December 1745 (old style) in Orange Court, Leicester Fields, London. His father, besides having a shoemaker s shop, kept riding horses for hire ; but he fell into difficulties some six years later, and was reduced ultimately to the necessity of hawking pedlery from village to village. The son accompanied his parents in their tramps, and besides the hardships incident to such a life had often to endure the consequences of his father s passionate outbreaks of temper, which were, however, succeeded by equally violent trans ports of affection. In such circumstances he was disposed to regard it as an extraordinary piece of good fortune when he succeeded in procuring the situation of stable boy at Newmarket, an employment in which he manifested great coolness and courage, and acquired high proficiency. Previous to this he had received a pretty good education, and at Newmarket he spent his evenings chiefly in miscel laneous reading and the study of music. Gradually he also succeeded in obtaining a competent knowledge of French, German, and Italian. On the expiry of his term of engagement as stable boy he returned to assist his father, who had again resumed his trade of shoemaker in London; but after marrying in 1765, he procured the office of teacher in a smull school in Liverpool. His subsequent career, like his earlier life, was hard and chequered, but it must suffice to state that, after failing in an attempt to set up a private school, he followed for several years the profession of an actor, often at a very meagre salary, and that he was more successful as a dramatist and novelist, but suffered much and frequent anxiety from pecuniary em barrassments and repeated disappointments. He died 23d March 1809 from enlargement of the heart, brought on, it is supposed, by the failure of several of his dramatic pieces. He was a member of the Society for Constitutional Reform, and on that account was, in 1794, indicted of high treason, but acquitted. The best known dramas of Holcroft are Duplicity, The School for Arrogance, The Road to Ruin, and The Deserted Daughter. Among his novels may be mentioned Alwyn and Hugh Trevor. He was also the author of Travels from Hamburg^ through Westphalia, Holland, and the Netherlands to Paris, and of some volumes of verse, and translated several works from the French and German with considerable elegance. The interest which still attaches to his career is, however, less on account of the intrinsic merit of his literary performances than his peculiarly chequered life and his persevering struggle to elevate himself above the ignorant and sordid condition of his early years. His Memoirs written by himself and continued down to the time of his Death, from his Diary, Notes, and other Papers, by William Hazlitt, appeared in 1815, and has gone into several editions.