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Scaliger is blamed by Aldrovandus, in his Treatise de Monstris,* and by Bulwer, in his Artificial Changeling, for denying the existence of Pygmies, because they cannot be found in Ethiopia or Arabia, where Pliny and Mela had placed them: this circumstance, both the moderns think of no weight; argumentum nullius valoris. They missed one strong argument, that is, Pomponius Mela's assertion, that the Pygmies were extirpated by their wars with the Of this Addison has availed himself very successfully, in his War of the Pygmies and Cranes; in the introduction to which, he has raised up a new and beautiful landscape of the ruins of the Pygmean empire :

cranes.

Nunc si quis dura evadat per saxa viator, Desertosque lares, et valles ossibus albas Exiguis videt, et vestigia parva stupescit. Desolata tenet victrix impuné volucris Regna, et securo crepitat Grus improba nido.

* Page 40.

+ Page 499.

He has even furnished, from this story, a highly poetical origin of the fairies:

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Elysii valles nunc agmine lustrat inani,
Et veterum Heroüm miscetur grandibus umbris
Plebs parva: aut si quid fidei mereatur anilis
Fabula, Pastores per noctis opaca pusillas
Sæpe vident Umbras, Pygmæos corpore cassos,
Dum secura Gruum, et veteres oblita labores,
Lætitiæ penitus vacat, indulgetque choreis,
Angustosque terit calles, viridesque per orbes
Turba levis salit, et lemurum cognomine gaudet.*

Unless we can resolve to adopt Mela's ac

Perhaps we owe this elegant passage to the following lines in Paradise Lost, where the fallen spirits in Pandemonium contract their size to gain room, and

Throng numberless, like that Pygmean race
Beyond the Indian Mount, or faery elves,
Whose midnight revels by a forest side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while over-head the moon
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth

Wheels her pale course, they on their mirth and dance

Intent, with jocund music charm his ear;

At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds. Book i, ver. 780.

count of the matter, however, I believe Scaliger's objection must remain in full force against the existence of Linnæus's Troglodyte; for Pygmies are not found in the habitations which he assigns them, namely, the confines of Ethiopia, the caves of Java, Amboyna, and Ternate, or in Malacca. The Albinos, on whose peculiarities he appears to found his definition, were never proved to exist as a nation;* on the contrary, wherever the history of an Albino could be traced, it was found to have been born in ordinary society. It is true Linnæus attempts to distinguish between his Troglodyte and man, by ascribing to the former the Membrana Nictitans, but anato mists in general know very well, that man possesses that membrane also, though without the power of expansion.

Besides, Linnæus's Troglodytes are placed at a very great distance from the sup

* Wafer's single testimony is not sufficient proof.

posed seat of the Albinos, which is said by the best authorities in this case to be near the isthmus of Darien. Whether, then, the Pygmean history be derived from the frequent appearance of dwarfs in society, or whether, like the Short Club in the Guardian, it be the invention of ambitious little men, we must send back

-the small infantry

Warr'd on by cranes

to the poetical quarter, for sound geography and natural history disclaim them.

Linnæus admits, with rather more hesitation, his variety of the Homo Caudatus: he is uncertain whether he ought to be ranked with men or apes, and is deterred from placing him among the latter, chiefly because he lights his own fire, and roasts his victuals. "Homo Caudatus, hirsutus, incola orbis antarctici, nobis ignotus, ideoque utrum ad hominis aut simiæ genus pertineat, non determino. Mirum quod ignem excitet, carnemque asset, quamvis et cruda voret, testi

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monio peregrinantium.* Of the few authorities which Linnæus has produced in support of this variety, I have only been able to consult one; but others have occurred to me at different times, which I am now going to mention.

He is

Pausanius is the most ancient authority for the existence of men with tails. more frequently quoted to this purpose, because he derived his story from the very person who saw such a race, in the Insula Satyriades, at which he touched, on being driven westward while he was sailing for Italy. The inhabitants, says Pausanias, are red, and have tails not much less than those of horses.

Pliny introduces among his other wonders, men with hairy tails, of wonderful swiftness, but I think without any authority. This is all the testimony afforded by antiquity of the Caudatory variety, unless the

*System. Natur. tom.
+ Attic. lib. i. p. 43.

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