168 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS “ LITTLE ANIMALS ”’ 
To Oldenburg’s inquiries Leeuwenhoek sent the following 
characteristic reply’: 
Your very welcome letters of the 12th and 22nd 
ultimo” have reached me safely. I was glad to see that 
Mr. Boyle* and Mr. Grew* sent me their remembrances : 
please give these gentlemen, on my behalf, my most 
respectful greetings. “T'was also a pleasure to me to see 
that the other Philosophers’ liked my observations on 
water, etc., though they found it hard to conceive of the 
huge number of little animals present in even a single 
"Letter 19. 23 March 1677. MS.Roy.Soc.—The greater part of this 
letter was translated into English and published in Phil. Trans. (1677), 
Vol. XII, No. 134, pp. 844-846. The original MS., in Dutch, is accompanied 
by a MS. translation into Latin, concerning which L. makes the following 
statement in a postscript (in Dutch, which I translate): “ Sir, seeing that 
you are most times hard pressed to find time to translate my observations 
into the English tongue, and mentioning this to a gentleman who hath 
divers times been to visit me; this gentleman offered me his services, to 
translate into Latin such of my observations as I may perchance com- 
municate to you: which offer I did not decline, and I now send you his 
Latin copy herewith, along with my own letter. I await your answer, and 
would know if I can serve you by acting in this way in future.” Although 
Oldenburg’s translation is said to be “ English’d out of Dutch’, it appears 
to me almost certain—from comparison of the three versions—that the 
English was really rendered from the Latin, and not from the Dutch copy. 
My own translation—above—is from the latter, written in L.’s own hand. 
This will explain several slight discrepancies between Oldenburg’s version 
and mine. It must be added that L. himself also printed a considerable 
extract from this letter, at a later date, in his Letter 96 (9 Nov. 1695)— 
published in the Dutch and Latin works. 
*7.e., February 1677. 
*The Hon. Robert Boyle (1627-1691)—“ Father of Chemistry and 
brother of the Earl of Cork.” 
“Nehemiah Grew (1641-1712), to whom several of L.’s most interesting 
letters were addressed, was a Doctor of Medicine (Leyden, 1671) and 
Secretary of the Royal Society from 1677 to 1679. He was educated at 
Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, and became a Fellow of the Society in 1671: 
but he is best known for his botanical work, and his catalogue of the 
Society's museum. As a botanist he was the rival of Malpighi, and a 
pioneer in the study of vegetable morphology. His later work is deeply 
tinctured with religion. (His father, Obadiah Grew, was an ejected 
minister of the English Church.) For his biography see the Dict. Nat. 
Biogr. and Arber (1913). 
*de Heeren Philosophen MS.—i.e., the Fellows of the Royal Society. 
