But in all his writings we observe his remarkable moderation. He knew that if he were to begin his educational campaign by an open attack on prevailing conditions, too much opposition would be the result. He sought the confidence and good will of the reader, and then by his wealth of wit and satire the reader was led to laugh at his own faults. But it was not enough to tear down; construction was as necessary as destruction. The satirical poems, such as "Klim's Underground Journey" and "Peder Paars" brought the people's faults to view, but desirable virtues to take their place were just as effectively presented in his "Epistles" and "Moral Thoughts," virtues which were also exemplified in the author's private life.

Holberg's writings created a proper recognition of the mother-tongue, and awakened a new interest in reading especially among the middle and poorer classes. His writings created in the people an interest in themselves and in their land, such as they had not possessed before. It taught them to cherish the best that was Danish, to substitute the sturdy noble products of their own land for the ephemeric forms which ignorance and slavish imitation had brought from foreign countries. It helped them to realize themselves and it gave them prospects for a bright future as a nation. In Ludvig Holberg we see today, not only the founder of the Norwegian-Danish literature, the satirical author of "Peder Paars" or "Nils Klim's Underground Journey," not only a philosopher and historian, but a teacher who impressed his individuality on a whole people, and one whose influence as a mighty power for good is felt today not only in Scandinavian literature, but in all Scandinavian culture as well.

—MORRIS JOHNSON.

INTRODUCTION.

"Jeppe on the Hill" (Jeppe paa Bjerget) is probably the best known of Holberg's many comedies. It was first presented in the Danish Theatre in 1722, and has since then been played times without number and with continued appreciation. It is a plain picture of peasant life, with the ludicrous side turned out, of course, but so faithful in detail and comprehensive in character that it has become known as the best expression of medieval conditions in the Scandinavian language, the classic representation of the medieval peasant in northern Europe. The plot of the play is briefly thus:

Jeppe, the principal character, is a poor oppressed peasant, abused by his wife and trodden down by his superiors. We are introduced in the opening scene to his wife, Nille, a veritable Xanthippe transplanted to the eighteenth century. With her shrill voice and stout whip,—Master Erik, by name,—she drives him out at an unreasonably early hour to go an unreasonable long distance for an insignificant amount of soap. She is, in fact, a true counterpart of Dame Van Winkle, wielding authority over a poor, weak Rip. Without so much as a cup of coffee, he starts with his dozen pence with which he is to make his purchase. On the way he stops in at the rascally innkeeper's, Jakob Skomager's, who induces the vacillating Jeppe to part little by little with his money until the poor peasant finds himself "broke," and with nothing to show for his departed coin but a "glorious drunk." After a soliloquy in which he calls to mind his past life, especially his brief experience in the army, he is overcome by his intoxication and falls in a drunken stupor by the wayside. In this senseless condition he is found by his "liege lord and master," the nobleman, and his servants. They decide to play a joke on the fellow; they dress him in the baron's clothes, take him to the castle and put him in the baron's bed, and then wait near by to see the show.

When he awakes he is certainly the transformed—and perplexed—peasant. He is quite overcome by the splendor of his surroundings, thinks at one moment that he is in a dream, and next decides that he must be in paradise; he calls for his wife, receives no reply, and wonders whether he is really himself or someone else. He tries in vain to connect the past with the present. When the uniformed servants answer his cry for help the situation becomes comical indeed. When Jeppe is finally convinced by servants and doctors that he is the baron, he assumes his new role with a vengeance and begins by tyrannizing over the servants and calling them to account. He does not forget to satisfy his desire for good things to eat and drink and after some fast music and a dance with the overseer's wife, he is overcome once more, this time by the wines and excitement, and falls again into a stupor of intoxication. He is dressed in his old clothes and put back on the dungheap where he first was found. When he awakes he finds himself by the old familiar wayside in all his old toggery,—plain "Jeppe on the Hill" once more. He is now thoroughly convinced that he really was in paradise, and begins to take another nap in the hope of again coming into his former glory, but when his wife, Nille, steals up and administers a resounding whack on his back with old Master Erik, he is convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he is in paradise no longer. The situation is further complicated for poor Jeppe and made the more ludicrous to the spectators when he is hauled before a magistrate for taking possession of the baron's house and tyrannizing over his servants. At the mock trial, which is one of the most humorous situations in the play, he stands ready to embrace the lawyer who defends him while he is wishing he could knock down or hang the lawyer who accuses him.

When he finds himself solemnly condemned to die by poison and hanging, he implores in vain for pardon, asks for some whiskey to keep up his courage, bids farewell to wife, family and dumb friends, and falls as before into a deep stupor. As he gradually regains consciousness, it is but to find himself hanging from the gallows,—by the arm pits, to be sure, but looking dead enough to cause his wife a few brief moments of remorse for her past treatment of her departed spouse. After he has been sentenced to life again by the same court that sentenced him to death before, the magistrate gives him four Rixdollars, a great sum for him, and he finds himself again the same old "Jeppe." When at last he is free, and the cause of his perplexities and bewildering metamorphoses has been revealed to him in startling fashion by the irrepressible Magnus, his chagrin is deep, indeed. The play closes after the old fashion by the reappearance of the perpetrators, the baron and his attendants, the former drawing the moral from the incident.

Such is the simple plot of this immortal comedy. Now a few words as to its significance. Jeppe, the hero and central figure of the play, is a type of the oppressed, circumscribed, and despirited serf of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, despised by his superiors and abused by his wife, drunken as an almost inevitable result of his condition and mercilessly driven from his own home. Drink is practically his only recourse and is to him the nearest and easiest approach to happiness. It is as the eminent Danish critic, Brandes, suggests, a sort of other life to Jeppe,—it is to him what music and poetry is to us. What may we gather from his reminiscences as he calls them up in his intoxication? His soldier days, his smattering of German, and his campaigns are particularly vivid, and although the latter were probably not especially glorious, they furnish him his proudest memories. Indeed the most honorable words he could put in the mouth of the sexton as he imagined him at his own funeral are those words so unspeakably comical, that "he lived