y;
but we must observe those two Characteristicks that _Homer_ gives of them,
that they are _Cubitales_ and fight _Cranes_.

Having premised this, I have taken into consideration _Caspar Bartholine
Senior_ his _Opusculum_ _de Pygmaeis_, and _Jo. Talentonius_'s Dissertation
about them: and upon examination do find, that neither the Humane
Authorities, nor Divine that they alledge, do any ways prove, as they
pretend, the Being of _Men Pygmies_. St. _Austin_, who is likewise quoted
on their side, is so far from favouring this Opinion, that he doubts
whether any such Creatures exist, and if they do, concludes them to be
_Apes_ or _Monkeys_; and censures those _Indian Historians_ for imposing
such Beasts upon us, as distinct Races of _Men_. _Julius Caesar Scaliger_,
and _Isaac Casaubon_, and _Adrian Spigelius_ utterly deny the Being of
_Pygmies_, and look upon them as a Figment only of the Ancients, because
such little Men as they describe them to be, are no where to be met with
in all the World. The Learned _Bochartus_ tho' he esteems the
_Geranomachia_ to be a Fable, and slights it, yet thinks that what might
give the occasion to the Story of the _Pygmies_, might be the _Nubae_ or
_Nobae_; as _Isaac Vossius_ conjectures that it was those _Dwarfs_ beyond
the Fountains of the _Nile_, that _Dapper_ calls the _Mimos_, and tells
us, they kill _Elephants_ for to make a Traffick with their Teeth. But
_Job Ludolphus_ alters the Scene, and instead of _Cranes_, substitutes his
_Condors_, who do not fight the _Pygmies_, but fly away with them, and
then devour them.

Now all these Conjectures do no ways account for _Homer's Pygmies_ and
_Cranes_, they are too much forced and strain'd. Truth is always easie and
plain. In our present Case therefore I think the _Orang-Outang_, or _wild
Man_, may exactly supply the place of the _Pygmies_, and without any
violence or injury to the Story, sufficiently account for the whole
History of the _Pygmies_, but what is most apparently fabulous; for what
has been the greatest difficulty to be solved or satisfied, was their
being _Men_; for as _Gesner_ remarks (as I have already quoted him) _Sed
veterum nullus aliter de Pygmaeis scripsit, quam Homunciones esse_. And the
Moderns too, being byassed and misguided by this Notion, have either
wholly denied them, or contented themselves in offering their Conjectures
what might give the first rise to the inventing this Fable. And tho'
_Albertus_, as I find