Early microscopes

Peacay at BibliOdyssey has a roundup of illustrations of early microscopes.

“They were incredibly small, nay so small, in my sight, that I judged that even if 100 of these very wee animals lay stretched out one against another, they could
not reach to the length of a grain of coarse Sand.” [Antonie van Leeuwenhoek describes his discovery of bacteria]