In 1728 Copenhagen was devastated by a fire, the extent of which, comparatively speaking, can only be likened to the famous fire of London sixty-two years earlier, to which I have already made a reference. In its consequences, it was even more far-reaching. It closes a chapter of high political and cultural interest in the history of the Dano-Norwegian monarchy, and opens a new one, imbued with an entirely different spirit, the characteristic features of which were Pietism and Germanism. Denmark, and more especially Copenhagen, became an intellectual province of Germany, customs and manners being stamped by the new religious movement, and ordinary life surrounded by a serenity which closed the door on all pleasures and enjoyments. It goes without saying that theatrical performances were considered most sinful, and that, even if the national stage had not had to go into bankruptcy some years before the fire, playgoing would have been promptly forbidden along with balls, masquerades, and other public and private entertainments. Under these circumstances Holberg who, not long ago had published his autobiography as a sort of apology--a literary event which, for various reasons, has been very much discussed by Holberg students--had to give up his activity as a playwright and turn to a work more in conformity with his position as a professor in the University of Copenhagen. But before he did so, he felt it his duty to inform the public that he was the author of the comedies which had hitherto appeared under the fictitious name of a citizen of a provincial town. He certainly did not tell the public anything new by this information, but he impressed it favourably and, what is more important still, he has profited by it in the eyes of posterity. We are pleased to learn, through the authority of Holberg himself on the eve of his long silence as a playwright, that he admits the authorship of his immortal comedies in face of enemies whose machinations might have overthrown him from behind, if he had not turned round to meet them and confronted them with an open visage.