1884.] 
Half-Hours with the Old Naturalists. 
199 
profoundest studies ; which did not think intellectual bond- 
age a price necessary to be paid for political freedom; 
which gave to thinkers in exile an asylum and a free press ; 
and which, in short, did such noble things that we may 
almost pardon her for her two deadly sins— the invention of 
national debts, and of chicory. Such was Holland in the 
seventeenth century. 
The time and the place, too, were well fitted to call gene- 
ral attention to biological studies. The vast commerce of 
the Netherlands and their extended colonial empire rendered 
the importation of “ natural curiosities ” an easy and a 
common matter. The shells, the inserts, the birds of 
Guiana, the Cape, and Java, were as startling and as much 
sought after as are now those of New Guinea or Central 
Africa. Hence we need not wonder if the formation of 
private museums became a favourite amusement among the 
wealthier burghers of Amsterdam. Many of these collec- 
tions were doubtless mere dilettante affairs, — raree-shows, 
where curiosities were stored up heedless of their nature 
and their origin, and were admired for their beauty, their 
rarity, and their cost, rather than studied. But in many 
cases these accumulations of specimens converted both 
owners and visitors into naturalists of various degrees of 
merit. 
Among these museums probably the finest and the most 
celebrated was that belonging to John James Swammerdam, 
a prosperous apothecary, or, in modern English phraseology! 
chemist and druggist. This worthy burgher took to wife 
Barentje Corver, and in time became the father of John 
Swammerdam, the subject of our memoir. The boy was 
from the earliest dawn of his understanding surrounded by 
zoological specimens, and from the joint influence, doubt- 
less, of hereditary taste and early association, he became 
passionately devoted to the study of Natural History. When 
a mere boy he began to collect inserts, Mollusca, &c. ; but 
he did not — as it was the fashion before his time, and as it 
is still common — merely colledt. We find him studying the 
habits and the development of these creatures, and, with 
such appliances as he could procure or devise, examining 
their inward structure. Hence we need not wonder that 
when his future career in life became a question for family 
discussion he — like in after times Darwin — felt no taste for 
the study of Divinity, as his father had intended. 
Medicine was next suggested as being more in harmony 
with his tastes and studies. But it was not until he had 
reached his twenty-sixth year that he entered the University 
