Simple and learned alike would, or should, had they known him, have given the author credit for the certain fact that ‘no sordid end, no personal consideration, attached him to his dismal system.’ If his anonymity shielded him from danger, it kept from him fame and celebrity too, and gave him the wholesome, but not soothing, experience of hearing expressed to his face criticisms of the kind generally only made behind one’s back. He did not gain even the painful glories of martyrdom; and had money been an object to him, by the publication of such works as his, he can only have lost it. Long before the tumult ‘The System of Nature’ raised had passed away, the Baron was busy supplementing it. In 1772 appeared ‘Good Sense, or Natural Ideas opposed to Supernatural Ideas,’ which was a sort of simplification of ‘The System of Nature.’ It was burnt. Then appeared ‘The Social System,’ which tried to establish a rule of morality totally unfounded on religion. That was burnt too. Then there was a translation from Hobbes. The last, or one of the last, of d’Holbach’s published works was entitled ‘Universal Morality, or the Duties of Man founded on his Nature.’ This appeared in 1776. He had the pleasure of watching all the bonfires from a distance where there was not the least danger of scorching. In 1781 one of his daughters was married. Her father was now fifty-eight years old. Did philosophy, as Galiani inquired (Galiani had returned to Italy in 1769), still eat at his table with its old appetite? Grimm said--in Grimm’s caustic fashion--that the guests fell off somewhat when the Baron had to retrench his expenses to establish his children. Some of the _convives_ had gone before that, to solve for themselves those questions on a future world, and the existence of the soul, which they had discussed so often. In 1771 died Helvétius; in 1778 Voltaire himself. In 1783, d’Alembert, who had indeed long ceased to frequent the Baron’s society, or any society, laid down the burden of his life. In the next year, Diderot, the friend of his heart, the fruitful inspiration of his work, was called away from d’Holbach’s side for ever. It must have been with this society, as it is with all societies at last: the sight of vacant chairs stops the mirth, and among the living guests glide others, dear and dead. When one has more memories than hopes, the time has come to give up such gatherings. That time came even to _the_ Host of his generation. By his own fireside he had to the end the wife he loved. She long survived him. He had, too, that tranquil and even disposition which is surely one of the best of assets--a possession indeed.