MEMOIR OF SWAMMERDAM. 49 



The papers just mentioned had been entrusted to 

 Wingendorp in order that he might translate them 

 into Latin. Swammerdam is said to have had but 

 little facility in the use of that language, although it was 

 the usual medium of communication among learned 



o 



men at that period ; it is certain that he wrote all 

 his works in Dutch, and afterwards employed others 

 ft) translate them, that they might not la,bour under 

 the disadvantage of being in a local and unpopular 

 tongue. The translator, in this instance, being needy 

 and unprincipled, tried to make a property of the 

 manuscripts in his possession, and refused to deliver 

 them up to the executors. Upon this, a tedious 

 law-suit ensued, and it was not till May, 1682 

 that the legatee had them placed at his disposal. It 

 was his purpose to have them published immediately 

 in Dutch, but probably finding that they required 

 revisal, he caused them to be sent to France. He 

 appears to have attempted some alterations and im- 

 provements, a task for which he was probably indif- 

 ferently qualified, but his death took place before he 

 had them ready for publication. After Thevenot's 

 decease, they were purchased by Jubert, painter to 

 the King of France, whose heirs afterwards sold them, 

 for fifty French crowns, to a distinguished anatomist, 

 Joseph du Verney. This individual for a long time 

 disregarded them, but the anatomy of the articulated 

 animals happening to come more into repute, he pro- 

 posed to turn them to account in a work on insects 

 under his own name, but of which they were designed 

 to form the principal materials. On hearing of this 



