seized his pen to refute the philosophy of the Systeme in the article "Dieu" in his _Dictionnaire philosophique_, while Frederick the Great also drew up an answer to it. Though vigorous in thought and in some passages clear and eloquent, the style of the Systeme is diffuse and declamatory, and asserts rather than proves its statements. Its principles are summed up in a more popular form in _Bon Sens, ou idees naturelles opposees aux idees surnaturelles_ (Amsterdam, 1772). In the Systeme social (1773), the _Politique naturelle_ (1773-1774) and the _Morale universelle_ (1776) Holbach attempts to rear a system of morality in place of the one he had so fiercely attacked, but these later writings had not a tithe of the popularity and influence of his earlier work. He published his books either anonymously or under borrowed names, and was forced to have them printed out of France. The uprightness and sincerity of his character won the friendship of many to whom his philosophy was repugnant. J. J. Rousseau is supposed to have drawn his portrait in the virtuous atheist Wolmar of the _Nouvelle Heloise_. He died on the 21st of January 1789. Holbach is also the author of the following and other works: _Esprit du clerge_ (1767); _De l'imposture sacerdotale_ (1767); _Pretres demasques_ (1768); _Examen critique de la vie et des ouvrages de St Paul_ (1770); _Histoire critique de Jesus-Christ_ (1770), and _Ethocratie_ (1776). For further particulars as to his life and doctrines see Grimm's _Correspondance litteraire_, &c. (1813); Rousseau's _Confessions_; Morellet's _Memoires_ (1821); Madame de Genlis, _Les Diners du Baron Holbach_; Madame d'Epinay's _Memoires_; Avezac-Lavigne, _Diderot et la societe du Baron d'Holbach_ (1875), and Morley's _Diderot_ (1878). HOLBEACH, a market town in the Holland or Spalding parliamentary division of Lincolnshire, England, on the Midland and Great Northern joint railway, 23(1/2) m. N.E. of Peterborough. Pop. of urban district (1901), 4755. All Saints' Church, with a lofty spire, is a fine specimen of late Decorated work. The grammar school, founded in 1669, occupies a building erected in 1877. Other public buildings are the assembly rooms and a market house. Roman and Saxon remains have been found, and the market dates from the 13th century.