him, Holberg’s career might have had an untimely close. During the next two years he published five shorter satires, all of which were well received by the public. The great event of 1721 was the erection of the first Danish theatre in Grönnegade, Copenhagen; Holberg took the direction of this house, in which was played, in September 1722, a Danish translation of L’Avare. Until 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 Kandestöber (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 Vaegelsindede (The Waverer), Jean de France, Jeppe paa 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 Bundeslöse (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 performance, in February 1727, a Funeral of Danish Comedy. All this excessive labour for the stage had undermined the great poet’s health, and in 1725 he had 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 poetical satire called Metamorphosis (1726), his Epistolae ad virum perillustrem (1727), 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 1747, pietism lost its sway; the theatre was reopened and Holberg was appointed director, but he soon resigned this arduous post. The six comedies he wrote in his old age did not add to his reputation. His last published work was his Epistles, in 5 vols. the last of them posthumous (1754). In 1747 he was created by the new king Baron of 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 Sorö, in Zealand. He had never married, and he bequeathed all his property, which was considerable, to Sorö 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.
The editions of Holberg’s works are legion. Complete editions of the Comedies are too numerous to be quoted; the best is that brought out in 3 vols. by F. I. Lichtenberg, in 1870. Of Peder Paars there exist at least twenty-three editions, besides translations in Dutch, German and Swedish. The Iter subterraneum has been three several times translated into Danish, ten times into German, thrice into Swedish, thrice into Dutch, thrice into English, twice into French, twice into Russian and once into Hungarian. The life of Holberg was written by Welhaven in 1858 and by Georg Brandes in 1884. Among works on his genius by foreigners may be mentioned an exhaustive study by Robert Prutz (1857), and Holberg considéré comme imitateur de Molière, by A. Legrelle (Paris, 1864). (E. G.)
HOLBORN, a central metropolitan borough of London,
England, bounded N.W. by St Pancras, N.E. by Finsbury,
S.E. by the City of London, S. and W. by the City of Westminster
and St Marylebone. Pop. (1901), 59,405. Area 405.1 acres.
Its main thoroughfare is that running E. and W. under the
names of Holborn Viaduct, High Holborn and New Oxford
Street.
The name of Holborn was formerly derived from Old Bourne, a tributary of the Fleet, the valley of which is clearly seen where Holborn Viaduct crosses Farringdon Street. Of the existence of this tributary, however, there is no evidence, and the origin of the name is found in Hole-bourne, the stream in the hollow, in allusion to the Fleet itself. The fall and rise of the road across the valley before the construction of the viaduct (1869) was abrupt and inconvenient. In earlier times a bridge here crossed the Fleet, leading from Newgate, while a quarter of a mile west of the viaduct is the site of Holborn Bars, at the entrance to the City, where tolls were levied. The better residential district of Holborn, which extends northward to Euston Road in the borough of St Pancras, is mainly within the parish of St George, Bloomsbury. The name of Bloomsbury is commonly derived from William Blemund, a lord of the manor in the 15th century. A dyke called Blemund’s Ditch, of unknown origin, bounded it on the south, where the land was marshy. During the 18th century Bloomsbury was a fashionable and wealthy residential quarter. The reputation of the district immediately to the south, embraced in the parish of St Giles in the Fields, was far different. From the 17th century until modern times this was notorious as a home of crime and poverty. Here occurred some of the earliest cases of the plague which spread over London in 1664–1665. The opening of the thoroughfares of New Oxford Street (1840) and Shaftesbury Avenue (1855) by no means wholly destroyed the character of the district. The circus of Seven Dials, east of Shaftesbury Avenue, affords a typical name in connexion with the lowest aspect of life in London. A similar notoriety attached to Saffron Hill on the eastern confines of the borough. By a singular contrast, the neighbouring thoroughfare of Hatton Garden, leading north from Holborn Circus, is a centre of the diamond trade.
Of the ecclesiastical buildings of Holborn that of first interest is the chapel of St Etheldreda in Ely Place, opening from Holborn Circus. Ely Place takes its name from a palace of the bishops of Ely, who held land here as early as the 13th century. Here died John of Gaunt in 1399. The property was acquired by Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor under Queen Elizabeth, after whom Hatton Garden is named; though the bishopric kept some hold upon it until the 18th century. The chapel, the only remnant of the palace, is a beautiful Decorated structure with a vaulted crypt, itself above ground-level. Both are used for worship by Roman Catholics, by whom the chapel was acquired in 1874 and opened five years later after careful restoration. The present parish church of St Giles in the Fields, between Shaftesbury Avenue and New
