pressing women in woods, under bestial appearances; which will be solved by the love these sages are known to bear to the females of our kind. I am sensible it may be objected, that they are said to have been compressed in the shape of different animals; but to this we answer, that women under such apprehensions hardly know what shape they have to deal with.

From what has been said, it is highly credible, that to this ancient and generous race the world is indebted, if not for the heroes, at least for the acutest wits of antiquity. One of the most remarkable instances is that great mimick genius Esop, for whose extraction from those Sylvestres homines we may gather an argument from Psanudes, who says, that Æsop signifies the same thing as Æthiop, the original nation of our people. For a second argument we may offer the description of his person, which was short, deformed, and almost savage, insomuch that he might have lived in the woods, had not the benevolence of his temper made him rather adapt himself to our manners, and come to court in wearing-apparel. The third proof is his acute and satyrical wit: and lastly, his great knowledge in the nature of beasts, together with the natural pleasure he took to speak of them upon all occasions. The next instance I shall produce is Socrates. First, it was a tradition, that he was of an uncommon birth from the rest of men: Secondly, he had a countenance confessing the line he sprung from, being bald, flat-nosed, with prominent eyes, and a downward look: Thirdly, he turned certain fables of Æsop into verse, probably out of his respect to beasts in general, and love to his family in particular.

k

In process of time the women, with whom these Sylvans would have lovingly cohabited, were either

Vid. Æfop. initio.

VOL. V.

k Vid. Plato and Xenophon.

N

taught by mankind, or induced by an abhorrence of their shapes to shun their embraces; so that our sages were neceffitated to mix with beasts. This by degrees occasioned the air of their posterity to grow higher than their middles: it arose in one generation to their arms; in the second it invaded their necks; in the third, it gained the ascendant of their heads, till the degenerate appearance, in which the species is now immersed, became compleated. Though we must here observe, that there were a few who fell not under the common calamity; there being some unprejudiced women in every age, by virtue of whom a total extinction of the original race was prevented. It is remarkable also, that even where they were mixed, the defection from their nature was not so entire, but there still appeared marvellous qualities among them, as was manifest in those who followed Alexander into India. How did they attend his army, and survey his order? How did they cast themselves into the same form, for march, or for combat? What an imitation was there of all his discipline? the ancient true remains of a warlike disposition, and of that constitution which they enjoyed, while they were yet a monarchy.

1

To proced to Italy: at the first appearance of these wild philosophers, there were some of the least mixed, who vouchsafed to converse with mankind; which is evident from the name of 1 Fauns a fando, or speaking. Such was he, who coming out of the woods in hatred to tyranny, encouraged the Roman army to proceed against the Hetruscans, who would have restored Tarquin. But here, as in all the western parts of the world, there was a great and memorable æra, in which they began to be silent. This we may place something near the time of Aristotle, when the number, vanity, and folly of human

1 Livy.

philosophers encreased, by which men's heads became too much puzzled to receive the simpler wisdom of these ancient Sylvans; the questions of that academy were too numerous to be consistent with their ease to answer, and too intricate, extravagant, idle or pernicious, to be any other than a derision and scorn unto them. From this period, if we ever hear of their giving answers, it is only when caught, bound, and constrained, in like manner as was that ancient Grecian prophet Proteus.

Accordingly we read in m Sylla's time of such a philosopher taken near Dyrrachium, who would not be persuaded to give them a lecture by all they could say to him, and only shewed his power in sounds by neighing like a horse.

But a more successful attempt was made in Augustus's reign by the inquisitive genius of the great Virgil; whom, together with Varus, the commentators suppose to have been the true persons, who are related in the sixth bucolick to have caught a philosopher, and doubtless a genuine one, of the race of old Silenus. To prevail upon him to be communicative (of the importance of which Virgil was well aware) they not only tied him fast, but allured him likewise by a courteous present of a comely maiden, called Ægle, which made him sing both merrily and instructively.

In this song we have their doctrine of the creation, the same in all probability as was taught so many ages before in the great Pygmæan empire, several hieroglyphical fables under which they couched or embellished their morals: For which reason I look upon this bucolick as an inestimable treasure of the most ancient science.

In the reign of Constantine we hear of another taken in a net, and brought to Alexandria, round

in Plutarch. in Vit. Syllæ.

whom the people flocked to hear his wisdom; but as Ammianus Marcellinus reporteth, he proved a dumb philosopher, and only instructed by his action.

The last we shall speak of, who seemeth to be of the true race, is said, by St. Jerome, to have met St. Anthony" in a desert, who enquiring the way of him, he shewed his understanding and courtesy by pointing, but would not answer, for he was a dumb philosopher also.

These are all the notices, which I am at present able to gather of the appearance of so great and learned a people on your side of the world. But if we return to their ancient native seats, Africa and India, we shall there find, even in modern times, many traces of their original conduct and valour.

In Africa (as we read among the indefatigable Mr. Purchas's collections) a body of them, whose leader was inflamed with love for a woman, by martial power and stratagem won a fort from the Portuguese.

But I must leave all others at present, to celebrate the praise of two of their unparalleled monarchs in India. The one was Perimal the Magnificent, a prince most learned and communicative, to whom, in Malabar, their excess of zeal dedicated a temple, raised on seven hundred pillars, not inferior in Moffæus's opinion, to those of Agrippa in the Pantheon. The other, Hanimaut the marvellous, his relation and successor, whose knowledge was so great, as made his followers doubt if even that wise species could arrive at such perfection: and therefore they rather imagined him and his race a sort of gods formed into apes. His was the tooth which the Portuguese took in Bisnagar, 1559, for which the Indians offered, according to Linschotten", the immense sum of seven hundred thousand ducats. Nor let me quit this head, P Linschot. ch. 44.

Vit. St. Ant.

• Moff.i..

without mentioning, with all due respect, Oran Outang the Great, the last of his line, whose unhappy chance it was to fall into the hands of the Europeans: Oran Outang, whose value was not known to us, for he was a mute philosopher; Oran Outang, by whose dissection the learned Dr. Tyson has added a confirmation to this system, from the resemblance between the homo Sylvestris and our human body, in those organs by which the rational soul is exerted.

१

We must now descend to consider this people as sunk into the bruta natura by their continual commerce with beasts. Yet even at this time what experiments do they not afford us, of relieving some from the spleen, and others from imposthumes, by occasioning laughter at proper seasons; with what readiness do they enter into the imitation of whatever is remarkable in human life? and what surprising relations have Le Comte and others given of their appetites, actions, conceptions, affections, varieties of imaginations, and abilities capable of pursuing them? If under their present low circumstances of birth and breeding, and in so short a time of life, as is now allotted them, they so far exceed all beasts, and equal many men, what prodigies may we not conceive of those, who were nati melioribus annis, those primitive longeval and antediluvian man-tygers, who first taught science to the world?

This account, which is entirely my own, I am proud to imagine has traced knowledge from a fountain, correspondent to several opinions of the ancients, though hitherto undiscovered both by them, and the more ingenious moderns. And now what shall I say to mankind in the thought of this great discovery? what, but that they should abate of their pride, and consider that the authors of our knowledge are among the beasts. That these, who were our elder brothers, by

9 Dr. Tyfon's anatomy of a pigmy.

Father le Comte, a Jesuit, in the account of his travels.