78 BIOLOGY AND ITS MAKERS 



The portrait (Fig. 18) which forms a frontispiece to his 

 Arcana Natures represents him at the age of sixty-three, 

 and shows the pleasing countenance of a, firm man in vigor- 

 ous health. Richardson says: "In the face peering through 

 the big wig there is the quiet force of Cromwell and the 

 delicate disdain of Spinoza." "It is a mixed racial type, 

 Semitic and Teutonic, a Jewish-Saxon; obstinate and yet 

 imaginative ; its very obstinacy a virtue, saving it from flying 

 too far wild by its imagination." 



Recent Additions to His Biography. There was asingular 

 scarcity of facts in reference to Leeuwenhoek's life until 1885, 

 when Dr. Richardson published in TkeAsclepiad* the results 

 of researches made by Mr. A. Wynter Ely th in Leeuwenhoek's 

 native town of Delft. I am indebted to that article for much 

 that follows. 



His Arcana Naturce and other scientific letters contained 

 a complete record of his scientific activity, but "about his 

 parentage, his education, and his manner of making a living 

 there was nothing but conjecture to go upon." The few 

 scraps of personal history were contained in the E^ncyclo- 

 paedia articles by Carpenter and others, and these were 

 wrong in sustaining the hypothesis that Leeuwenhoek was 

 an optician or manufacturer of lenses for the market. Al- 

 though he ground lenses for his own use, there was no need 

 on his part of increasing his financial resources by their sale. 

 Pie held under the court a minor office designated ' Chamber- 

 lain of the Sheriff.' The duties of the office were those of a 

 beadle, and were set forth in his commission, a document 

 still extant. The requirements were light, as was also the 

 salary, which amounted to about 26 a year. He held this 

 post for thirty-nine years, and the stipend was thereafter 

 continued to him to the end of his life. 



Van Leeuwenhoek was derived from a good Delft family. 



* Leeuwenhoek and the Rise of Histology. The Asclepiad, Vol. II. 1885. 



