MEMOIR OF SWAMMERDAM. 
Tlie 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 
men at that period ; it is certain that he wrote all 
his works in Dutch, and afterwards employed others 
to translate them, that they might not Labour 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, 1G82, 
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 Franco. 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 
D 
