MEMOIR OF SWAMMERDAM. 
51 
any thing to equal this performance of one of our 
countrymen. This instance will, I believe, be suffi- 
cient to convince mankind that we have among us 
uncommon geniuses, who have made the most im- 
portant discoveries, and, spider-like, have furnished 
themselves alone both with the workmanship and 
materials. Plowever, I must in justice own, there 
is now in France such another bright sun, who by 
his light not only shows, but adds grace and dignity 
to every object he is pleased to shine upon. I mean 
that prodigy of our age and glory of his country, the 
illustrious Reaumur. God grant this great man life 
to go through, and many years to survive, his great 
undertaking/' * 
These valuable remains were thus secured for the 
benefit of science, and rendered accessible to all in 
the well-known work entitled Biblia Naturce sive 
Historia Insectorum in certas classes redact a, fyc. fyc. 
This work was originally published at Leyden in 
1737, with the text in the original Dutch, and a 
Latin translation by Professor Gaubius of Leyden. 
It is known to English readers by a translation from 
the pen of Thomas Flloyd, which was revised and 
improved by the addition of notes from Reaumur and 
others, by Sir John Hill, M.D., and published in a 
folio volume at London, in 1758. Several of the 
papers in this volume have been already referred to, 
and it is so well known that it is quite unnecessary 
to give any further account of its contents. Besides 
Book of Nature, Hill's Edit. p. 14. 
