306 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS ‘‘ LITTLE ANIMALS ”’ 
spoken in South Africa—than modern Dutch: and I have 
been credibly informed that a certain well-known historian 
of zoology actually engaged a Boer from Cape Colony (in 
preference to an educated Hollander) to translate some of 
Leeuwenhoek’s original letters for him, in the belief that he 
would thus obtain the most accurate English rendering. (I 
have also been told that the Cape Dutchman declined the task 
after inspecting the early MSS. He is said to have expressed 
the opinion that they were really not written in Dutch at all !) 
So far as I can judge, Leeuwenhoek’s speech was very different 
from modern Afrikaans: but I have no accurate knowledge of 
this language—what little I know being derived chiefly from 
perusal of the interesting work of Bosman (1928). In any case 
it is certainly a mistake to suppose—as I know some people 
do—that Leeuwenhoek’s Dutch is as different from modern 
Dutch as Chaucer’s English is from modern English. Any- 
body who can read modern Dutch can, with a little patience 
and practice, easily read Leeuwenhoek's printed letters. 
That Leeuwenhoek knew no language but his own is 
attested by himself and others. For example, he refers in 
Letter 2 (ante, p. 42) to his lack of education in this 
respect and Molyneux also comments upon it (ante, p. 58). 
Numerous passages in the published Letters might easily be 
cited to the same purpose,’ but perhaps the best testimony is 
furnished by an unpublished letter written to Oldenburg in 
1676. Oldenburg, it appears, had written to suggest that 
Leeuwenhoek should conduct his future correspondence either 
in French (which he supposed Leeuwenhoek must know) or in 
English (for which he imagined a translator could readily be 
found in Delft, as so many English were then in Holland). 
Leeuwenhoek answered as follows :” 
" Letter 15 (21 April 1676, to Oldenburg: MS.Roy.Soc.), of which an 
incomplete translation was published in the Phil. Trans. (Vol. XI, No. 127, 
p. 653. 1676.), is sometimes quoted in evidence. In this letter L. is made 
to say: © I, by reason of my unskilfulness in the English Tongue, could have 
little more than the contentment of viewing the elegant Cuts’’ [in Grew’s 
Anatomy of Trunks]. But unfortunately the words here italicized (by me) 
are not in the original MS. They are a gloss by the translator (Oldenburg), 
and not L.’s own words. Nevertheless, the passage testifies that Oldenburg 
was aware that L. did not know English. 
* From Letter 13a. 22 January 1676. To Oldenburg. Unpublished. 
MS.Roy.Soec. (The original is in Dutch—the above being my translation.) 
