ELECTION TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY 47 
was, to him, an event of the first magnitude, and an unfailing 
source of encouragement for the rest of his life. 
From letters still extant it appears that Hooke! wrote to 
Leeuwenhoek early in 1680, and expressed surprise that his 
name was not upon the list of Fellows of the Society: and he 
also then offered, apparently, to propose him for election. To 
this letter Leeuwenhoek replied” that he had “never had a 
thought of pretending” to such a distinction, though he 
would “thankfully have acceded if Mr Oldenburg, in his 
lifetime,” had afforded any opening”: and he would regard 
election to the Fellowship, he says, as “‘the greatest honour 
in all the world”’. 
This letter was written on 13 February 1680 [N.S.] in reply 
to Hooke’s dated 23 January 1680 [O.S.]; but the election 
actually took place on 29 January|O.S.|—before Leeuwenhoek’s 
answer could have been received in England. Moreover, 
Hooke was not the proposer : for it is recorded by Birch ‘—and 
accurately, as reference to the minutes shows—that on 29 
January 1679/80 [O.S.] “Dr. Heusch,° Mr. Firmin® and 
* Dr Robert Hooke (1635-1703), an original Fellow of the Royal Society, 
was also an original and eccentric genius and inventor. His contributions 
to science are too well-known and numerous to mention; though his 
influence on his contemporaries, and the part he played in the early days of 
the Society, are only just beginning to receive their due recognition. 
Inadequate accounts of his life will be found in Waller (1705) and the Dict. 
Nat. Biogr.—also in some more recent publications. It is impossible and 
unnecessary to discuss this remarkable man and his work here. 
* Letter 29b. 18 February 1680 [N.S.] to R. Hooke. MS. Roy. Soc. 
Unpublished. This letter was translated by Francis Aston, and read at a 
meeting of the Society held on 12 Feb. 1680 [0.S.]. Cf. Birch, Vol. IV, 
pel. j 
* Oldenburg died, it will be recalled, in 1677. Hooke and Grew were 
appointed Secretaries in the same year, while Gale succeeded to this office 
in 1679. 
; Bireh, Vol. FV, p.'6. 
* Johann Christian Heusch, M.D., principal physician to the Elector 
Palatine but otherwise apparently undistinguished. He attended a meeting 
of the Society on 22 Jan. 1680, and subsequently signed his name in the 
register. Cf. Birch, Vol. IV, pp. 5, 7. 
* Thomas Firmin (1632-1697), citizen of London, remembered only as a 
philanthropist. Though a Fellow of the Society he was not a man of 
science. See Dict. Nat. Biogr. and life by Cornish (1780). 
