T. MOLYNEUX’S VISIT S| 
the contractions in the original manuscript for typographical 
reasons and for the convenience of the modern reader: ' 
I have hitherto delay’d answering your last, because I 
could not give You any account of Myn Heer Leeuwen- 
hoeck, but last week I was to wait uppon him in Your 
name: he shew’d me several things through his Micro- 
scopes, which ’tis in vain to mention here, since he him- 
self has sent You all their descriptions at large. as to 
his Microscopes themselves, those which he shew’d me, 
in number at least a Dozen, were all of one sort, consisting 
only of one smal Glas, ground, (this I mention because ’tis 
generaly thought his Microscopes are blown at a Lamp, 
those I saw I’m sure were not) placed between two thin 
flat Plates of bras, about an Inch broad & an Inch & } 
long ; in thees two Plates there were two Apertures one 
before, the other behinde the Glas, which were larger or 
smaler, as the Glas was more or less convex, or as it 
macnify’d; just opposite to thees Apertures on one side was 
placed sometimes a Needle, sometimes a slender flat body of 
glas or opaque” mater as the occasion requir’d, uppon 
which, or to it’s apex, he fixes whatever object he has to 
look uppon, then holding it up against the Light by help of 
two smal scrues he places it justin the Focus of his glass 
and then makes his observations. Sutch were the Micro- 
scopes which I saw, and thees are they he shews to the 
Curious that come and vizite him, but besides thees he told 
me he had an other Sort, which no Man living ever look’d 
through setting aside himself, thees he reserves for his own 
1 MS.Roy.Soc., No. 2445; M.1.103, dated from Leyden, 13 February 
1685 [N.S.]. This letter has been printed previously, with slight inaccuracies 
and amended spelling, by Birch (Vol. IV, p. 365). It was addressed to 
Francis Aston, then Secretary of the Royal Society, and was read at the 
meeting held on.11 February 1685 [0.S.]—not Feb. 4 (an impossible date) 
as it appears in Birch, who here wrongly combined the proceedings of two 
different meetings. 
> In translating this letter—from Birch—Haaxman has made a slip. 
He renders “ opaque” as “ doorschijnende ’’—instead of ondoorschijnende, as 
he should have done. See Haaxman (1875), p.13, lin. penult. 
