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 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 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 Soro, in Zealand. He had never married, and he