"The greatest gifts of nature," he says, "every one of which would make a man prominent in comparison with others were, to an equal degree, concentrated in Cromwell. He seems to have received something from all nations, for one saw in him Italian shrewdness and cunning, French swiftness, English courage and Spanish firmness. He founded his fabric with cunning; he puts his machine in action with rapidity; by his courage he was victorious everywhere.... It may be said that his wonderful deeds and his great name were sufficient to keep his internal and external enemies in subjection, for as he was hated by all, so he was also admired by all.... Cromwell ranks with those few men whom nature seems to have exhausted herself in moulding."[5] I think you will admit that this is an extraordinary tribute to the memory of the Protector, considering that it was written in 1749 by a loyal subject of an absolute monarch, who had to weigh his words carefully when speaking about a regicide. Anyhow, Holberg's essay is the first scientific rehabilitation of Cromwell before Carlyle. Five years later--energetic and active as ever and, above all, remarkably receptive to the new ideas of the time, and eager to subject them to a close examination--Holberg quietly breathed his last. He died on January 28th, 1754, at the age of 69, in his city residence at Copenhagen. Lonely as he had been in life, his death was barely noticed, and a few years later one of his more intelligent contemporaries remarks with regret, that he seems to be almost entirely forgotten. Holberg certainly did not expect anything in the way of public mourning and official obsequies on the part of the community in which he felt himself an alien, and upon the mind of which the greatness of his lifework had not yet dawned; but even what may be called the decorum of indifference was absent on this occasion. Yet time has brought its revenge. Before the expiration of the eighteenth century Holberg's work was in a fair way to being acknowledged. From the 'thirties of last century it rose rapidly in esteem. The bi-centenary jubilee of his birth, which was celebrated all over Norway and Denmark on December 3rd, 1884, gave a lasting impetus to his fame. His commanding position in literature was established for all time. In his article on Holberg in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_ (Vol. XIII.), Mr. Edmund Gosse justly says: "Holberg was, with the exception of Voltaire, the first writer in Europe in two generations. Neither Pope nor Swift, who perhaps exceeded him in particular branches of literature, approached him in range of genius or in encyclopaedic versatility. Holberg found Denmark"--Mr. Gosse might have added _and Norway_--"without books. He wrote a library for her" (_i.e._, _them_) ... "He filled the shelves of the citizens with works in their own tongue ... all written in a true and manly style and representing the extreme attainment of European culture at the moment."