comparison, proceeded to relate all the scandalous facts they
could find recorded of David, and by clever distortions painted
him as the most execrable of Kings, in a work entitled _David or
the Man after God's Own Heart_, which formed the basis of Holbach's
translation.

5. _Les pretres demasques ou des iniquites du clerge chretien_.
Londres, 1768. Translation of four discourses published under
the title _The Ax laid to the root of Christian Priestcraft
by a layman_, London, T. Cooper, 1742. A rare volume.

6. _Lettres philosophiques..._ Londres (Amsterdam, 1768).
Translation of J. Toland's _Letters to Serena_, London, 1704.
The book, which had become very rare in Holbach's time, had
caused a great scandal at the time of its publication and was
much sought after by collectors. It contains five letters,
the first three of which are by Toland, the other two and the
preface by Holbach and Naigeon. The matters treated are, the
origin of prejudices, the dogma of the immortality of the soul,
idolatry, superstition, the system of Spinoza and the origin of
movement in matter.

Diderot said of these works, in writing to Mlle. Volland
Nov. 22, 1768 (_Oeuvres_, Vol. XVIII, p. 308): "Il pleut des
bombes dans la maison du Seigneur. Je tremble toujours que
quelqu'un de ces temeraires artilleurs-la ne s'en trouve mal.
Ce sont les _Lettres philosophiques_ traduites, ou supposees
traduites, de l'anglais de Toland; c'est _l'Examen des
propheties_; c'est la _Vie de David ou de l'homme selon la
coeur de Dieu_, ce sont melle diables dechaines.--Ah!