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  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