38 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS “ LITTLE ANIMALS” 
(Plate VIII). His foreign correspondence was enormous, as 
can be gathered from the manuscript letters to and from him 
still preserved by the Society. Among the Roy. Soc. MSS. 
(to mention no others) are drafts of more than 400 letters— 
apart from numerous translations and many other documents— 
written by Oldenburg to various more or less celebrated and 
scientific persons between the years 1657 and 1677: while the 
extant letters addressed to him well exceed 1200 in number. 
Henry Oldenburg (1615 ?—1677),* first Secretary of the 
Royal Society,” was a remarkable man. He was a German 
of good family—a native of Bremen—who came to England 
about 1640 and afterwards played a prominent part in con- 
temporary English scientific life. He is now chiefly remem- 
bered, however, as a translator and as the first editor of the 
Philosophical Transactions and as a correspondent with nearly 
all outstanding “ philosophers” and “virtuosi” of his day. 
Curiously enough, no adequate biography of this influential 
figure in the History of Science has ever yet been published. 
It may be noted in passing that several scientific letters 
written to Oldenburg—including some of Leeuwenhoek’s— 
are addressed to ‘“‘ Mr. Grubendol”’. He sometimes used this 
anagram when corresponding with foreigners, apparently, in 
order to avoid suspicion through receiving too many com- 
munications from abroad in his proper name. It was a 
transparent subterfuge which reflects no discredit upon him: 
but that his fears were well founded is clear from the fact 
that he was actually imprisoned, as a suspected spy, towards 
the end of June, 1667. Pepys,’ in his Diary, under the 
date 25 June 1667, notes: “I was told, yesterday, that Mr. 
Oldenburg, our Secretary at Gresham College, is put into the 
‘For his life see Birch, Vol. III, p.3853; Rix (1893); and the Dict. 
Nat. Biogr. The date of his birth is not certainly known; but it was not 
1626, as usually stated. 
> Jointly with John Wilkins (1614-1672), D.D.; Master of Trinity 
College, Cambridge (1659); later Bishop of Chester (1668). Wilkins was 
also a man of considerable parts. A collective edition of his ‘mathematical 
and philosophical works”’ appeared in 1708 (with a portrait and the author’s 
life prefix’d). 
* Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 
1665 and President in 1684. 
