ANTONY VAN LEEUWENHOEK, F.R.S. 49 
“The president’ took with him the diploma for Mr. 
Leewenhoeck, and presented the Society with a screw-press for 
sealing such diploma’s.” ® 
Unfortunately the “‘ diploma,” though safely delivered * in 
Delft, is now lost; but it is portrayed in Verkolje’s oil-painting 
of Leeuwenhoek,* wherein it is shown as a vellum scroll with 
a pendent red seal. Curiously enough, it was apparently 
engrossed in Dutch’—not in Latin—in deference to the re- 
cipient’s ignorance. On receipt of this document, with its big 
red seal and in its engraved silver box, Leeuwenhoek returned 
the following acknowledgement :° 
Delft, 13th May 1680. 
To the President, Council, 
& Fellows of the Royal Society. 
Gentlemen, 
I was quite taken aback to hear that the members of 
the Roy. Society had been pleased to confer upon me, all 
undeservedly, so much honour and dignity as to admit me 
a Fellow of the same most worthy College; as I first 
learnt from a letter written by Mr Secretary Thos. Gale, 
and a bit later through the receipt of a sealed Diploma ; 
whereof both were full of expressions on my behalf that 
Sir Joseph Williamson (1633-1701), statesman. 
> Birch, Vol. LV, p. 21. 
* Halbertsma (1843, p. 19) says he had heard [wt audivi’’—no 
authority quoted] that L. received the diploma from the British Ambassador 
at The Hague. This seems likely enough; but I have sought in vain for any 
confirmation of the statement. 
* Now in the Rijks-Museum (see Plate XI). It is not shown in Verkolje’s 
mezzotint (see Frontispiece). 
° Several words are clearly legible in the painting. 
° Letter 31b. 13 May 1680 [N.S.]. To the Royal Society. MS.Roy.Soc. 
Unpublished. The original is in Dutch, and the above is my translation : 
but I confess my inability to convey to the modern English reader the 
extraordinary mixture of formal and familiar, colloquial and commercial, 
and above all genuine and sincere phraseology of the ancient original. 
A similar letter (No. 31a, also unpublished) was sent to Robert Hooke 
personally at the same time (dated 13 May 1680 [N.S.] MS.Roy.Soc.). 
Both letters were communicated to the Society by Hooke on 13 May [0.8.]. 
Cf. Birch, Vol. IV, p. 37. 
4 
