Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/213

This page needs to be proofread.

HOLBEKG


HOLLANDER


generally printed in Amsterdam, and d Holbach s name did not appear, so that he continued the work for about ten years. His chief work, Le systeme de la nature (2 vols., 1770), which bore the name of Mirabaud, is Atheistic and Materialistic, and it scandalized even Voltaire and Frederic II. D Holbach was a man of very sober and fine life, very generous, and an enthusiast for liberty and enlighten ment. D. Jan. 21, 1789.

HOLBERG, Ludwig, Baron von, Danish dramatist. B. Dec. 3, 1684. Ed. Copen hagen . He began to prepare for the Church , but he abandoned the idea and became a tutor in Norway. In 1714 the Copenhagen University nominated him professor and gave him a travelling pension. He studied French literature at Paris. In 1717 he was appointed professor of metaphysics, and in 1720 of rhetoric, at Copenhagen University. Holberg published a great deal of satirical verse, and a number of brilliant comedies, which brought him the title of " the Moliere of Denmark." Others compare him to Voltaire. His Nicolai Klimii Her Subter- raneum (1741) is transparently Deistic (see the analysis of it in Eobertson s Short History of Freethought, ii, 356). The pious King checked his bold output by making him professor of history. He was created Baron in 1747. D. Jan. 28, 1754.

HOLCROFT, Thomas, dramatist. B. Dec. 10, 1745. The son of poor parents, he became in succession a stable boy, shoe maker, teacher, prompter, and actor. In 1778 he produced his first play, The Crisis, and gradually won some repute. He was indicted in 1794 on account of his sympathy with the French Ee volution, and lived some years in France. On his return to England he set up a printing business, wrote many works, and translated books from the French and German (including the works of Frederic the Great). He was aa Atheist (though passages in his later letters suggest that he ended a Deist), and denied a future life (see his poem Human Happiness, or 353


The Sceptic, 1783). Lamb speaks of him as one of the most candid, most upright, and single-meaning men." D. Mar. 23, 1809.

HOLDERLIN, Johann Christian Fried- rich, German poet. B. Mar. 20, 1770. Ed. Denkendorf Seminary and Tubingen University. He withdrew from clerical training and devoted himself to letters and philosophy, adopting Pantheistic views. He was a tutor from 1794 to 1801. In 1797 he published his first romance, Hyperion, and in 1800 his Pantheistic drama Empedokles. The poems and stones that followed put Holderlin in a very high position, but his mind failed, and for nearly forty years he remained childlike and powerless. D. June 7, 1843.

HOLLAND, Frederic May, American writer. B. May 2, 1836. Ed. Harvard. He was ordained Unitarian minister at Eockford in 1863, but he abandoned the Unitarian creed and contributed to the American Eationalist periodicals. He wrote The Reign of the Stoics (1879), The Else of Intellectual Liberty (1885), Sketches of the Progress of Freedom (1900), and other works.

HOLLAND, first Baron. See Fox, HENRY.

HOLLAND, third Baron. See Fox, H. E. V.

HOLLAND, Lady. See Fox, E. V.

HOLLANDER, Bernard, M.D., M.E.C.S., L.E.C.P., physician. B. (Vienna) 1864. Ed. King s College, London. Dr. Hollander settled in London in 1883, and he was appointed Physician to the British Hospital for Mental Disorders and Brain Diseases. He was naturalized in 1894. He has devoted his attention particularly to ab normal mental phenomena, has founded a modified system of phrenology (Scientific Phrenology, 1902, etc.), and is one of the 354 o