Produced by David E. Brown, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) 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.