24 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS “LITTLE ANIMALS” 
made the acquaintance of Swammerdam,’ and perhaps of other 
young men with congenial interests. 
I may remind the reader that in 1648—the year in which 
Antony went to serve in the shop at Amsterdam—the Treaty 
of Minster, which ended the Thirty Years’ War, was signed. 
This reminder will recall the posture of Kurope at the moment 
—a moment when “ Holland had taken her place in the very 
front rank in the civilised world, as the home of letters, science 
and art, and was undoubtedly the most learned state in 
Kurope.” ° 
About six years after his first apprenticeship in Amsterdam, 
Leeuwenhoek returned to his native town: and here, for the 
rest of his days, he remained. For nearly 70 years—from 
1654 until the day of his death in 1723—he lived and worked 
in Delft; so that when, in the fullness of time, he became 
famous, he also became enduringly identified with his 
habitation. During his later lifetime he was regarded as one o 
the sights of the place—hardly less conspicuous than the Old 
Church, and almost as permanent a fixture. 
As Delft forms the background of all the scenes displayed 
in this book, I must here say a little more about this fine old 
town. ‘There are several descriptions and many pictures of 
the place as it was in Leeuwenhoek’s day. We have, for 
example, not only the compendious and valuable Dutch 
accounts by Dirk van Bleyswijck (1667) and Reinier Boitet 
(1729)—enriched with numerous engravings—but also various 
shorter and less particular records contained in works such as 
the earlier Latin “ Batavia” of Junius (1588) and “ Batavia 
Illustrata”’ of Scriverius (1609), and in the anonymous but 
once popular French guide-book called “Les Délices de la 
* That L. was acquainted with Swammerdam we know from his own 
statements (e.g., he refers to visits which Swammerdam paid him in Letter 6, 
7 Sept. 1674). Haaxman has gone so far as to suggest (1875, p. 10 seq.) 
that it was Swammerdam who, during L.’s residence in Amsterdam, first 
aroused his interest in microscopic studies. But this appears improbable: 
for, as Pijzel (1875, p. 108) points out, Swammerdam was only 11 years old 
when L. went there, and not more than 16 or 17 when he left: and we can 
hardly suppose, therefore, that L. received much guidance from so youthful 
and junior a mentor. 
* Edmundson (1922), p. 186. This is an indisputable fact which many 
people nowadays—in many different countries—are all too apt to forget. 
