In 1746 the reign of Pietism came to an end on the death of Christian VI. The accession to the throne of his frivolous, intemperate son, Frederick V., whose first wife was a daughter of George II., inaugurated a new era. All gates of enjoyment were at once thrown open. Hymn-books and Bibles were flung away, and people crowded to theatres, masquerades, dancing halls and other entertainments. Holberg's dramatic vein began to flow again after a twenty years' ebb, but the comedies of his closing years can in no way be compared to those which he produced in the hey-day of his life. More valuable to us than these comedies is the series of smaller essays in the form of _Epistles_ (five volumes), and _Moral Thoughts_ (two volumes), which he wrote in these years along with a number of minor, and we may also say, inferior works. These volumes are still a rich source of information to Holberg students. In none of his works do we get a more intimate personal acquaintance with him. We learn to know him in his modest, lonely, every-day life; his sympathies and his antipathies; "the anfractuosities of his mind and of his temper," which were certainly no less obvious than Samuel Johnson's; his corporal frailties; his mental recreations. He is, in a certain way, his own Boswell--less obtrusive, however, and, as a consequence, more concise. There is no subject so insignificant that he thinks it below his dignity to discuss it; there is none so exalted that he refrains from expressing his opinion upon it. He tells us as willingly why he prefers a cat to a dog, and what a real shoemaker ought to know--as he tells us his opinion on God and eternity; the destination of man and the supposed greatness of the popular heroes of history whom, by the way, he is more inclined to consider as the mischief makers of mankind and the squanderers of its economic wealth. Through the whole of this wonderful collection of essays we breathe what Hamlet would call "the eager and the nipping air" of originality, invigorating by its draught of commonsense and moral responsibility. We easily forgive him that some of his views are obsolete, for in other respects he is far ahead of his time, and by his unbiassed attitude leaves even the most advanced spirits of his age behind him. How splendidly--only to mention one example--he is able to grasp a character like that of Cromwell! At a time when Cromwell was generally considered one of the most abominable personalities in history and a disgrace to his nation; when Hume and Voltaire vied with each other in misunderstanding him, both being of opinion that Cromwell's character was broadly that of a shrewd and daring hypocrite,[4] Holberg was no less convinced of the true genius of the Protector than of his personal good faith and of his patriotic ambition.