The LIFE of JOHN SWAMMERDAM. ix 
almoft as conftantly engaged by night in recording them by drawings, and 
fuitable explanations. This being fummer work, his daily labour began at 
-fix in the morning, when the fun afforded him light enough to furvey fuch 
minute objeéts; and from that hour till twelve he continued without inter- 
ruption, all the while expofed in the open air to the {corching heat of the 
fun, bearheaded, for fear of interrupting the fight, and his head in a manner 
diffolving into fweat under the irrefiftable ardors of that powerful luminary. 
And if he defifted at noon, it was only becaufe the ftrength of his eyes was 
too much weakened, by the extraordinary aflux of light and the ufe of 
microfcopes, to continue any longer upon fuch {mall objects, though as dif- 
cernible in the poftmeridian, as they had before been in the antemeridian 
* hours. ; 
This fatigue our author fubmitted to for a whole month together, without 
_ any interruption, merely to examine, defcribe, and reprefent the inteftines 
of Bees, befides many months more beftowed upon the other parts; during 
which time he fpent whole days in making obfervations, as long as there 
was fufhcient light to make any; and whole nights in regiftering his obfer- 
vations, till at at laft he brought his treatife of Bees to the wifhed-for 
perfection: a work which all the ages from the commencement of natural 
hiftory to our own times, have produced nothing to equal, nothing to com- 
pare with it. Read and confider it, and then judge for yourfelf. Our 
author, the better to accomplifh his vaft unlimited views, often withed for 
a year of perpetual heat and light to perfect his inquiries, with a polar night 
to reap all the advantages of them by proper drawings and defcriptions. 
In his effay on the Hemorobion, or Day Fly, he ingenuoufly owns that this 
his treatife of Bees was formed amidft a thoufand torments and agonies of 
heart and mind, and felf-reproaches, natural to a mind full of devotion and 
_ piety. On one hand his genius urged him to examine the miracles of the 
great Creator in his natural produétions, whilft on the other, the love of that 
fame all-perfe& Being deeply rooted in his heart, ftruggled hard to perfuade 
him, that God alone, and not his creatures, was worthy of his refearches, 
love and attention. The diftrefs of mind our author felt upon this occafion, 
was fo fevere that as foon as he had finifhed his book upon Bees, he put it 
into the hands of ‘another, without knowing or giving himfelf the leaft con- 
cern about what might become of it. It appears however, that he at the 
fame time wrote two letters to Paul Boccone, on the conftruéion of falt 
water or fea ftones and corals, which are to be found in the nineteenth and 
twentieth letters of the faid Boccone’s natural obfervations. After this 
Swammerdam grew almoft altogether carelefs of the arts he had been hitherto 
fondeft of. He had conceived this diftafte for wordly affairs above two years 
before, though he had ftruggled again{t it in favour of his book on Bees ; 
but now he could no longer allow his mind any other occupation befides that 
of loving and adoring the Sovereign Good, to whofe honour alone he openly 
declared, he began and directed his many and great labours in the cultivation 
of natural hiftory, from which he now entirely defifted merely to devote al! 
the little uncertain portion of life that remained, to the fincere practice of 
every chriftian virtue. His temperament was of the melancholy kind, which 
phyficians have obferved to be very firm in its purpofes, and our author’s 
natural difpofition was encreafed by a quartan ague, fo that he prefevered in 
_ his refolution, in which the authority and advice of Antonia Bourignon fixed 
him beyond a poflibility of relapfing into his former worldly way of thinking. 
He therefore refolved to withdraw himfelf entirely from all converfation with 
7 c the 
