John Chamberlayne wrote to Hans Sloane about difficulties translating Leeuwenhoek's Dutch, "so abstruse that even his own countrymen cannot explain him"
Date:
June 6, 1701
Chamberlayne continued to have trouble translating Leeuwenhoek's letters. Consulting native Dutch speakers did not always help.
Adriaan van Borssele van der Hooghe (1658-1728), lord of Geldermalsen. In 1699, he was appointed envoy extraordinary to the English court, where he must have become acquainted with Chamberlayne.
Document:
Chamberlayne wrote to Sloane (British Library, Sloane MS 4038 f. 171):
For want of grammar he [Leeuwenhoek] is sometimes so abstruse that even his own countrymen cannot explain him. [He omitted a whole paragraph] which Mr de Geldermalsen himself could make nothing of it.
When he keeps to a bare relation of fact he is one of the greatest men in the world, but when he begins to philosophise he is one of the least.
