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42 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS “LITTLE ANIMALS ”’ 
I have oft-times been besought, by divers gentlemen, to 
set down on paper what I have beheld through my newly 
invented Microscopia: but I have generally declined; 
first, because I have no style, or pen, wherewith to express 
my thoughts properly; secondly, because I have not been 
brought up to languages or arts, but only to business; and 
in the third place, because I do not gladly suffer contra- 
diction or censure from others. This resolve of mine, 
however, I have now set aside, at the intreaty of Dr Reg. 
de Graaf; and I gave him a memoir on what I have 
noticed about mould, the sting and sundry little limbs of 
the bee, and also about the sting of the louse. This 
memoir he (Mr de Graaf) conveyed to you; whereupon 
you sent me back an answer, from which I see that my 
observations did not displease the Royal Society, and that 
the Fellows desired to see figures of the sting and the 
little limbs of the bee, whereof I made mention. As I 
can’t draw, I have got them drawn for me, but the 
proportions have not come out as well as I had hoped to 
see ’em; and each figure that I send you herewith was 
seen and drawn through a different magnifying-glass. I 
beg you, therefore, and those Gentlemen to whose notice 
these may come, please to bear in mind that my observa- 
tions and thoughts are the outcome of my own unaided 
impulse and curiosity alone; for, besides myself, in our 
town there be no philosophers who practise this art; so 
pray take not amiss my poor pen, and the liberty I here 
take in setting down my random notions.’ 
Exactly a week before Leeuwenhoek dispatched the fore- 
going letter to the Royal Society, some further information 
about himself had been sent to one of the Fellows by 
Constantijn Huygens’—the once celebrated diplomatist and 
" gedachten, die ick als overhoop hier onderstel MS. It is difficult to 
render these words exactly in modern English. 
* Constantijn Huygens (1596—1687), statesman, poet, musician, and 
man of letters—‘ the most brilliant figure in Dutch literary history. Other 
statesmen surpassed him in political influence . . . but his talents 
