“cc 
342 LEEUWENHOEK AND HIS “ LITTLE ANIMALS ”’ 
whereon he is wrongly supposed to have lived, are both now 
open spaces where little Dutch children can play in the sun. 
I even find something appropriate, poetic, and comforting in 
these ‘‘ inscrutable dispensations of Providence.” 
(v) LEEUWENHOEK’S DRAUGHTSMEN 
It is well known that most of the illustrations accompanying 
Leeuwenhoek’s letters were not drawn by his own hand. He 
tells us himself that he was a poor draughtsman, and therefore 
employed more skilful artists to make his figures.’ There are 
several references to this subject in his published works ; but 
perhaps the most explicit expression is to be found in an early 
unpublished letter, wherein he says—in answer to Oldenburg’s 
complaint that his drawings were not sufficiently clear—that 
he sees with the utmost clarity all that he describes, but then 
adds :° 
Yet I am to blame, because I can’t draw; and secondly, 
because I am resolved not to let anybody know the 
method that I use* for this purpose: and so I just make 
only rough and simple sketches with lines, mostly in 
order to assist my memory, so that when I see them I 
get a general idea of the shapes: besides, some of the 
forms I see are so fine and small, that I don’t know how 
even a good draughtsman could trace them, unless he 
made them bigger. 
Many of the original drawings sent with the letters to the 
Royal Society have been preserved. They are, for the most 
part, of no great artistic merit, and differ in minor details 
from the published engravings. This is, in the main, because 
the originals were usually drawn with red or black chalk, or 
pencil (exceptionally with ink or in colour), and were often 
reduced in size by the engraver. All variations are readily 
explicable by the difference in technique—the soft line made 
with red crayon on paper being impossible to render exactly 
by the hard line of the burin on metal. On the whole, the 
1 Cf. Letter 2, p. 42 supra. 
2 Translated from Letter 11. 26 March 1675. To Oldenburg. MS.Roy.Soc. 
* je, in handling the microscope—as is evident from the context. 
