The low social level of the Danish peasantry in Holberg's days which contrasted so unfavourably with the social standing of the Norwegian peasants; the state of drunkenness to which they stooped in consequence of the physical and moral humiliations to which they were subjected, and which they wished to forget; the commonsense and keen power of reflection of which they nevertheless were possessed and to which Holberg has paid the famous tribute: "I never speak with peasants without learning something from them"--all this has combined to make Jeppe perhaps the most famous person in the Holberg gallery, conquering generation after generation by his inexhaustible flow of life. It has justly been said by the famous Danish poet, Oehlenschlaeger (1779-1850) that if we might imagine that every document and record bearing upon Denmark at the commencement of the eighteenth century suddenly vanished from the earth with the sole exception of Holberg's comedies, it would yet be possible to reconstruct the Danish community of the time on the basis of them. This assertion is no exaggeration, but nevertheless it only contains a half truth. In their outward appearance Holberg's comedies are Danish--customs and manners, names and scenery being contemporary Danish portraits hailing from Copenhagen or from the province--but from within they are unmistakably Norwegian. In fact, the typical characters of the Holberg gallery are not only his compatriots; they are natives of Bergen like himself. The old-fashioned gentleman, Jeronimus, narrow-minded, but possessed of a solid stock of commonsense which will stand no nonsense from the younger generation; his wife Magdelone, who has some recollections of a merry youth and is not altogether proof against relapses into former extravagances; Henrik, the clever servant with the ever-inventive brain, the champion of the rights of youth; Pernille, the witty chamber-maid, alternately impertinent and obsequious, but always beaming with mirth, sure of a safe, however narrow, escape--every one of them, as well as a number of less important characters, are stamped by their own dear, queer town. You may even meet them in the streets of Bergen to-day. It was not therefore by chance that the national stage of Norway was founded at Bergen in the middle of the nineteenth century. The city in which Holberg was born and in which his persons moved about in life, quite naturally became the birthplace of the Norwegian scenic art, and it is the lasting honour of the actors and actresses of the _Bergen National Stage_--still the official name of the theatre of the city--to have contributed to build up a Holberg tradition, which has been further developed by actors and actresses from other parts of the country, chiefly at the Christiania Theatre and its artistic heir the National Theatre at Christiania. V.