BOITET AND HOOGVLIET 93 
them with the following covering note from himself to the 
Secretary’ : 
Our venerable old Leeuwenhoek, being already in the 
throes of death, though none the less mindful of his art, 
ordered me to be called to him ; and raising his eyes, now 
heavy with death,’ kept asking me in half-broken words 
if I would translate these two letters out of our native 
tongue into Latin, and send them, most distinguished Sir, 
to you. In obedience, therefore, to these commands of 
so great a man, with whom I had been for some years on 
terms of most intimate friendship*, I can do no less than 
send you, most learned Sir, this final gift of my dying and 
most dear friend: hoping that these his last efforts will 
prove acceptable to you. 
I pray that the Supreme Judge of all things may long 
bless Your Excellency, and the Royal Society: Farewell. 
Leeuwenhoek’s death was first made known to the 
Fellows of the Royal Society by a letter from the minister of 
his church—the Rev. Mr Peter Gribius.* His communication 
1 MS. Roy. Soc., No. 1413; H. 3.112. Joannes Hoogvlietius to J. Jurin, 
Sec. R.S., 4 September 1723. Printed fully (except last sentence) in Phil. 
Trans. (1724), XXXII, 435. My translation is made from the original MS. 
(very clearly written in good classical Latin), whose endorsement shows that 
the letter was read at a meeting of the Society on 7 Nov. 1723 [O.S]. 
2 attollensque oculos jam gravatos morte MS. “ mij met reeds half gebroken 
oogen aanstarende’”” Haaxman (1875, p.122)—a mistranslation. 
= quo abhinc jam aliquot annos usus fueram faniliarissime MS. Haaxman, 
ioc. cit., also misconstrues these words, which do not imply that Hoogvliet 
had been accustomed to translate L.’s letters into Latin for several years. 
The expression ‘ wtor aliquo”’ means “I enjoy the friendship of someone ”: 
ef. Cicero—His Fabricius semper est wsus Oppianicus familiarissime (pro 
Cluentio, XVI, 461, 46). Moreover, no other known letters of L. are extant 
in Hoogvliet’s handwriting. 
* He styled himself “ Petrus Gribius, Ecclesiae Delphensis pastor senex.”’ 
Gribius [alias Grybius] was born at Middelburg in 1651, and died at Delft 
in 1739. He was educated in the Latin Schools of Amsterdam, Utrecht, 
and Leyden, and before taking holy orders visited Oxford and Cambridge. 
He became minister of the New Church at Delft in 1681 (Boitet, 1729, 
p. 441), and retired in 1734. Some of his sermons and essays have been 
published, and his portrait was painted by Thomas v. d. Wilt (cf. p. 345). 
Further details of his life will be found in an article contributed by F. S. 
Knipsheer to the N. Nederl. Biogr. Woordenb. (1924), VI, 634. 
