LETTER 2. CONST. HUYGENS 43 
poet who is now best known to men of science as father of 
Christiaan Huygens the mathematician and astronomer. On8 
August 1673, Sir Constantijn wrote (in English, as here given) 
to Robert Hooke :* 
Our honest citizen, Mr. Leewenhoeck—or Leawenhook,* 
according to your orthographie—having desired me to 
peruse what he hath set down of his observations about 
the sting of a bee, at the requisition of Mr. Oldenburg, 
and by order, as I suppose, of your noble Royal Society, 
I could not forbear by this occasion to give you this 
character of the man, that he is a person unlearned both 
in sciences and languages, but of his own nature exceed- 
ingly curious and industrious, as you shall perceive not 
onely by what he giveth you about the bee, but also by 
his cleere observations about the wonderfull and trans- 
parent tuwbulc appearing in all kind of wood . . . His way 
for this is to make a very small incision in the edge of 
a box, and then tearing of it a little slice or film, as I 
think you call it, the thinner the better, and getting it 
upon the needle of his little microscope—a machinula of 
his owne contriving and workmanship—brass*®’ . . . I 
trust you will not be unpleased with the confirmations 
of so diligent a searcher as this man is, though allways 
were more varied, and his general accomplishments more remarkable than 
those of any other person of his age, the greatest age in the history of the 
Netherlands. Huygens is the grand seigneur of the republic’? (Edmund 
Gosse). He was also the friend and confidant of L. King James I knighted 
him in 1622—+ten years before L. was born. 
* The original letter is preserved among the MSS. in the Royal Academy 
at Amsterdam, and has been recently printed by J. A. Worp (1917), Brief- 
wisseling van Const. Huygens, Vol. V1; No. 6909, p.330. A part has been 
copied—not too accurately—by Vandevelde (1924a, p. 289), who wrongly 
dates the letter Aug. 3—On Hooke see note 1 on p. 47 infra. 
* Cf. p. 304 infra. 
* This word (brass, following a dash) occurs thus in the MS. but is 
omitted from the printed letter by the modern editor (Worp), who says it 
is “‘ unintelligible”. To me, however, it appears very easy to understand: 
Huygens meant that L.’s little microscope was “made of brass’’—as so 
many of his instruments were. 
