The President's Address. By H. G. liimmer. 123 



would probably have agreed with Heine, that the Romans would 

 never have found time to conquer the world if they had been 

 obliged first to learn Latin ; but he is said to have learnt mathe- 

 matics. His father died ; and at sixteen years of age, he was sent 

 to a linendraper's at Amsterdam to learn the business. He must 

 have done fairly well there, as he rose to be eventually cashier and 

 accountant ; but it did not please him, or his other aspirations 

 became uppermost in his mind, for he quitted the draper's shop 

 and returned to Delft. He married, himself quite young — only 

 twenty-two years old — a young woman named Barbe de Mey, by 

 whom he had five children, only one of wliom — a girl — survived 

 him, and buried him. His wife died, and he quickly remarried, 

 but had no children by his second wife. He was unemployed for 

 some time, but was probably making Microscopes and observations, 

 and laying a foundation for his future work. Then he was offered 

 the post of Chamberlain of the Sheriff of the town of Delft, which 

 he accepted and held for thirty-nine years. This poor office, worth 

 £26 a year, and generally given to old servants who wanted to 

 retii^e from active service, left him almost all his time free, which 

 explains his extraordinary activity during the whole period of his 

 scientific career. They, the Aldermen of Delft, knew nothing of 

 this man to whom posterity has given so great a place in Science : 

 who, by means of his ingenuity and penetrating spirit, enlarged 

 enormously the field of investigation, and whose work was the 

 starting point of a crowd of studies of enormous importance for 

 the advancement of Science. In the irony of circumstance he 

 had a position usually given to old servants, that of a beadle, but 

 he was, as Sir B. W. Richardson christened him, an immortal 

 beadle ! His own Government naturally never dreamt of making 

 for him a place worthy of his merit. 



Now, with regard to his instruments. He constructed his 

 Microscope, lenses and all, entirely with his own hands, and he had 

 the perpetual desire to make ever and ever better ones than he 

 had, so that he died possessing a very large number. He some- 

 times gave one away, but he never sold one. They were all con- 

 structed upon the same general model, but some were better than 

 others ; and it has been said that he never showed anybody his 

 best Microscopes. This idea has been founded on a remark of his 

 in one of his communications, where he speaks of observations 

 made with a Microscope, which he kept for his personal use : he 

 also says he placed certain Microscopes at the disposal of his 

 visitors'^ but that he had many better, wliich he kept absolutely for 

 his own studies, and " which no man living had looked through, 

 setting aside himself." The Royal Society asked with extreme 

 insistence to be made acquainted with the nature of these iustru- 

 ment, but he always replied evasively, or not at all. When he got 

 ■old, Leibnitz urged him to teach some young men the art of grind- 



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