the same _Apology_ for
him, as _Strabo_[A] do's on another account for his _Geography_, [Greek:
ou gar kat' agnoian ton topikon legetai, all' haedonaes kai terpseos
charin]. That he said it, not thro' Ignorance, but to please and delight:
Or, as in another place he expresses himself,[B] [Greek: ou gar kat'
agnoian taes istorias hypolaepteon genesthai touto, alla tragodias
charin]. _Homer_ did not make this slip thro' Ignorance of the true
_History_, but for the Beauty of his _Poem_. So that tho' he calls them
_Men Pygmies_, yet he may mean no more by it, than that they were like
_Men_. As to his Purpose, 'twill serve altogether as well, whether this
bloody Battle be fought between the _Cranes_ and _Pygmaean Men_, or the
_Cranes_ and _Apes_, which from their Stature he calls _Pygmies_, and from
their shape _Men_; provided that when the _Cranes_ go to engage, they make
a mighty terrible noise, and clang enough to fright these little _Wights_
their mortal Enemies. To have called them only _Apes_, had been flat and
low, and lessened the grandieur of the Battle. But this _Periphrasis_ of
them, [Greek: andres pygmaioi], raises the Reader's Phancy, and surprises
him, and is more becoming the Language of an Heroic Poem.

[Footnote A: _Strabo Geograph_. lib. 1. p.m. 25.]

[Footnote B: _Strabo_ ibid. p.m. 30.]

But how came the _Cranes_ and _Pygmies_ to fall out? What may be the Cause
of this Mortal Feud, and constant War between them? For _Brutes_, like
_Men_, don't war upon one another, to raise and encrease their Glory, or
to enlarge their Empire. Unless I can acquit my self herein, and assign
some probable Cause hereof, I may incur the same Censure as _Strabo_[A]
passed on several of the _Indian Historians_, [Greek: enekainisan de kai
taen 'Omaerikaen ton Pygmaion geranomachin trispithameis eipontes], for
reviewing the _Homerical_ Fight of the _Cranes_ and _Pygmies_, which he
looks upon only as a fiction of the Poet. But this had been very
unbecoming _Homer_ to take a _Simile_ (which is designed for illustration)
from what had no Foundation in Nature. His _Betrachomyomachia_, 'tis true,
was a meer Invention, and never otherwise esteemed: But his _Geranomachia_
hath all the likelyhood of a true Story. And therefore I shall enquire now
what may be the just Occasion of this Quarrel.

[Footnote A: _Strabo Geograph_. lib. 2. p.m. 48.]

_Athenaeus_[A] out of _Philochorus_, and so likewise _AElian_[B], tell us a
Story, That in t