Letter 2347

Chamberlayne no longer wants to be a member of the Royal Society. He was only supposed to serve as Leeuwenhoek’s interpreter, but stayed out of ‘vanity and curiosity’. He is quitting public life and wants to be released from his duties as Treasurer by ‘Michalmas’. Thereafter he wants Sloane to ‘consider [him] as Dead’. John Chamberlayne was a translator and editor specializing in modern languages which he studied at the University of Leiden. He translated works on many topics, was a fellow of the Royal Society, and published three works in the Philsophical Transactions (Reavley Gair, Chamberlayne, John (1668/91723), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5060, accessed 30 May 2011]).