Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Entomology.djvu/55

The 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, 1682, 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 France. He appears to have attempted some alterations and improvements, a task for which he was probably indifferently 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 proposed 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