HOLBERG, BARON LUDVIG, or LEWIS, who may be as the father, or, as he has been styled by some, the Colossus of modern Danish literature, was born at Bergen in Norway, in 1684. So far from being the inheritor of title or patrimony, he was of obscure family, his father having been originally a common eoldier, though afterwards promoted to the rank of coloneL His death how ever, which happened while Ludvig was quite a child, left the family in very etraitened circumstances, so that, as soon as the son had completed his studies at Copenhagen, he had no other resource than to become a private tutor. It was not long before a strong inclina tion for travelling led him, in spite of his exceedingly scanty finances, to set out for Amsterdam, where he had the misfortune to be attacked by a fever. He afterwards made his way back to Christiansted, where he endeavoured to gain a subsistence by teaching French ; but that failing he came to England, where he stayed about two years at Oxford. On returning to Copenhagen he obtained the situation of tutor to the sou of a wealthy individual, with whom he travelled through Ger many. On another occasion he contrived to proceed as far as Rome, journeying for the most part, like Goldsmith, ou foot. On his return to Denmark he obtained a maioteuance by teaching languages, until he was appointed professor of Metaphysics, and in 1720 professor of eloquence. Ho was now in tolerably easy and improving circumstances, and had for the first time leisure to apply himself to his pen, and turn to account the multifarious stock of learning which he Had picked up in the course of his unsettled life. He had now passed his youth, nor had he given any symptoms of a talent for poetry, when he astonished and delighted his countrymen by his satires, and that masterpiece of heroic comic-poetry, his 'Peeler Pears.' This production has acquired for its author the title of the Danish Butler ; not however on account of any similarity of subject with Hudibrss,' but merely as being a national and popular work of the same genus. With less wit and learning than its English rival, 'Feder Tsars' is quite as lively and diverting, and replete with humorous incidents from beginning to end.
Tho most formidable rival to the author of 'Peder Pears' is Hei berg the dramatist ; for his comedies have rendered the poem only his secondary title to Tame. These productions, amounting to nearly forty,
and composed between 1723 and 1746, exhibit very strong graphic and comic power. Yet it must bo acknowledged that his dramas are not free from defects, although they possess such vigour and spirit that we cheerfully excuse them. His ' Metamorphoses,' in which ho has reversed Ovid's system, transforming animals into men, instead of men into animals, is iugenioua in idea and happy in execution. But that to which some have assigned the foremost place among his productions is Niels Klims' Subterrnneous Journey,' first published in 1741, and written in Latin, but translated not only into Danish (by Rahbek), but into almost every other European tongue. In this philosophical satire Hedberg has shown himself perhaps the imitator, but perhaps also the rival, of Lucian and Swift.
These works would indicate no little industry, yet they constitute but an inconsiderable portion of Holberg's writings, whose pen was as prolific as that of Voltaire, there being hardly a department of literature which he left unessayed, if wo except tragedy. The annals of literature afford probably no parallel instance of a comic author so admirable, and also so fertile, who was at the same time so universal. History, biography, philosophy, politics, all employed Lis pen in turn, and to such extent that it would occupy too much space were we to specify severally his writings of this class. Suffice it then to mention merely his History of Denmark," Church History,' Historia Univer salia.' What would be the exact amount of all that ho wrote, if printed in a uniform series, we know not, but his select works alone, as edited by Ralibeic, 1804.14, extend to twenty-one octavo volumes. Nor is our wonder at their vast number and variety diminished when we consider that he had hardly commenced authorship at a period of life when many have already produced their chief works, and that he did not live to a remarkably advanced age, for he died January 27, 1754, in his seventieth year : he had been created a noble by Frederick V. in 1747. Baron Ilolberg bad raised himself to affluence by his writings, and having no family, for he was never married, he bequeathed the bulk of his property (amounting to 70,000 dollars) to the Academy of Soree.