Marcus Furius, was the first who rendered the family of Furius illustrious. He triumphed four times, was five times dictator, and was honoured with the title of the second founder of Rome. In a word, he acquired all the glory a man can gain in his own country. Lucius Apuleius, one of the tribunes, prosecuted him to make him give an account of the spoils taken at Veii. Camillus anticipated judgment, and banished himself voluntarily. During his banishment, instead of rejoicing at the devastation of Rome by the Gauls, he exerted all his wisdom and bravery to drive away the enemy; and yet kept with the utmost strictness the sacred law of Rome, in refusing to accept the command, which several private persons offered him. The Romans who were besieged in the capitol, created him dictator in the year 393; in which office he acted with so much bravery and conduct, that he entirely drove the army of the Gauls out of the territories of the commonwealth. He died in the 81st year of his age, 365 years before the Christian era.

CAMILLI and CAMILLAE, in antiquity, boys and girls of ingenious birth, who ministered in the sacrifices of the gods; and especially those who attended the flamen dialis, or priest of Jupiter. The word seems borrowed. borrowed from the language of the ancient Hetrurians, where it signified minister, and was changed from *cafil- millus*. The Tuscans also gave the appellation *Camil- lus* to Mercury, in quality of minister of the gods.

**Caminha**, a maritime town of Portugal, in the province of Entre-Duero-e-Minho, with the title of a duchy. It is situated at the mouth of the river Minho, in W. Long. 9° 15', N. Lat. 41° 44'.

**Camis**, or **Kamis**, in the Japanese theology, denote deified souls of ancient heroes, who are supposed still to interfect themselves in the welfare of the people whom they anciently commanded.

The camis answer to the heroes in the ancient Greek and Roman theology, and are venerated like the saints in the modern Roman church.

Besides the heroes or camis beatified by the consent of antiquity, the *mikaddos*, or pontiffs, have deified many others, and continue still to grant the apotheosis to new worthies; so that they swarm with *camis*: the principal one is *Tenso Dai Sin*, the common father of Japan, to whom are paid devotions and pilgrimages extraordinary.

**Camisaide**, in the art of war, an attack by surprise in the night, or at the break of day, when the enemy is supposed to be asleep. The word is said to have taken its rise from an attack of this kind; wherein, as a badge or signal to know one another by, they bore a shift, in French called *chemise*, or *chamise*, over their arms.

**Camisards**, a name given by the French to the Calvinists of the Cevennes, who formed a league, and took up arms in their own defence, in 1688.

**Camletine**, a slight stuff, made of hair and coarse silk, in the manner of camlet. It is now out of fashion.

**Camma**, and **Gobbi**, two provinces of the kingdom of Loango in Africa. The inhabitants are continually at war with each other. The weapons they formerly used in their wars were the short pike, bows and arrows, sword and dagger; but since the Europeans have become acquainted with that coat, they have supplied them with fire-arms. The chief town of Gobbi lies about a day's journey from the sea.—Their rivers abound with a variety of fish; but are infested with sea-horses, which do great mischief both by land and water. The principal commerce with the natives is in logwood, elephants teeth and tails, the hair of which is highly valued, and used for several curious purposes.

**Cammin**, a maritime town of Germany, in Brandenburg Pomerania, situated in E. Long. 15°, N. Lat. 54°.

**Camoens**, Louis de, a famous Portuguese poet, the honour of whose birth is claimed by different cities. But according to N. Antonio, and Manuel Correa, his intimate friend, this event happened at Lisbon in 1517. His family was of considerable note, and originally Spanish. In 1370, Vasco Perez de Caamans, disgusted at the court of Castile, fled to that of Lisbon, where King Ferdinand immediately admitted him into his council, and gave him the lordships of Sardoal, Punete, Marano, Amendoe, and other considerable lands; a certain proof of the eminence of his rank and abilities. In the war for the succession, which broke out on the death of Ferdinand, Camoens sided with the king of Castile, and was killed in the battle of Aljabarota. But though John I., the victor, seized a great part of his estate, his widow, the daughter of Gonfalo Tereyro, grand master of the order of Christ, and general of the Portuguese army, was not reduced beneath her rank. She had three sons who took the name of Camoens. The family of the eldest intermarried with the first nobility of Portugal; and even, according to Cafera, with the blood royal. But the family of the second brother, whose fortune was slender, had the superior honour to produce the author of the *Lusiad*.

Early in his life the misfortunes of the poet began. In his infancy, Simon Vaz de Camoens, his father, commander of a vessel, was shipwrecked at Goa, where, with his life, the greatest part of his fortune was lost. His mother, however, Anne de Macedo of Santarene, provided for the education of her son Louis at the university of Coimbra. What he acquired there, his works discover; an intimacy with the classics, equal to that of a Scaliger, but directed by the taste of a Milton or a Pope.

When he left the university, he appeared at court. He was handsome; had speaking eyes, it is said; and the finest complexion. Certain it is, however, he was a polished scholar, which, added to the natural ardour and gay vivacity of his disposition, rendered him an accomplished gentleman. Courts are the scenes of intrigue; and intrigue was fashionable at Lisbon. But the particulars of the amours of Camoens rest unknown. This only appears: he had aspired above his rank, for he was banished from the court; and in several of his sonnets he ascribes this misfortune to love.

He now retired to his mother's friends at Santarene. Here he renewed his studies, and began his poem on the discovery of India. John III. at this time prepared an armament against Africa. Camoens, tired of his inactive obscure life, went to Ceuta in this expedition, and greatly distinguished his valour in several encounters. In a naval engagement with the Moors in the straits of Gibraltar, in the conflict of boarding, he was among the foremost, and lost his right eye. Yet neither hurry of actual service nor the dissipation of the camp could stifle his genius. He continued his *Lusiad*, and several of his most beautiful sonnets were written in Africa, while, as he expressed it,

One hand the pen, and one the sword, employ'd.

The fame of his valour had now reached the court, and he obtained permission to return to Lisbon. But, while he solicited an establishment which he had merited in the ranks of battle, the malignity of evil tongues, as he calls it in one of his letters, was injuriously poured upon him. Though the bloom of his early youth was effaced by several years residence under the scorching heavens of Africa, and though altered by the loss of an eye, his presence gave uneasiness to the gentlemen of some families of the first rank where he had formerly visited. Jealousy is the characteristic of the Spaniards and Portuguese; its resentment knows no bounds, and Camoens now found it prudent to banish himself from his native country. Accordingly, in 1553, he failed for India, with a resolution never to return. As the ship left the Tagus, he exclaimed, in the words of the sepulchral monument of Scipio Africarum, canus, ingrata patria, non possitis offa mea! "Ungrateful country, thou shalt not possess my bones!" But he knew not what evils in the east would awake the remembrance of his native fields.

When Camoens arrived in India, an expedition was ready to sail to revenge the king of Cochin on the king of Pimenta. Without any rest on shore after his long voyage, he joined this armament, and in the conquest of the Alagada islands displayed his usual bravery.

In the year following, he attended Manuel de Vafconcello in an expedition to the Red Sea. Here, says Faria, as Camoens had no use for his sword, he employed his pen. Nor was his activity confined to the fleet or camp. He visited Mount Felix and the adjacent inhospitable regions of Africa, which he so strongly pictures in the Lusiad, and in one of his little pieces where he laments the absence of his mistress.

When he returned to Goa, he enjoyed a tranquillity which enabled him to bestow his attention on his epic poem. But this serenity was interrupted, perhaps by his own imprudence. He wrote some satires which gave offence; and by order of the viceroy Francisco Barreto, he was banished to China.

The accomplishments and manners of Camoens soon found him friends, though under the disgrace of banishment. He was appointed commissary of the defunct in the island of Macao, a Portuguese settlement in the bay of Canton. Here he continued his Lusiad; and here also, after five years residence, he acquired a fortune, though small, yet equal to his wishes. Don Constantine de Braganza was now viceroy of India; and Camoens, desirous to return to Goa, resigned his charge. In a ship, freighted by himself, he set sail; but was shipwrecked in the gulf near the mouth of the river Mehon, on the coast of China. All he had acquired was lost in the waves; his poems, which he held in one hand, while he swammed with the other, were all he found himself possessed of when he stood friendless on the unknown shore. But the natives gave him a most humane reception: this he has immortalized in the prophetic song in the tenth Lusiad; and in the seventh, he tells us, that here he lost the wealth which satisfied his wishes.

Agora da esperança ja adquirida, &c.

Now blest with all the wealth fond hope could crave, Soon I behold that wealth beneath the wave For ever lost; My life, like Judah's heaven-doom'd king of yore, By miracle prolong'd—

On the banks of the Mehon he wrote his beautiful paraphrase of the psalm, where the Jews, in the finest strain of poetry, are represented as hanging their harps on the willows, by the rivers of Babylon, and weeping their exile from their native country. Here Camoens continued some time, till an opportunity offered to carry him to Goa. When he arrived at that city, Don Constantine de Braganza, the viceroy, whose characteristic politeness admitted him into intimate friendship, and Camoens was happy till Count Redondo assumed the government. Those who had formerly procured the banishment of the satirist, were silent while Constantine was in power; but now they exerted all their arts against him. Redondo, when he entered on office, pretended to be the friend of Camoens; yet, with all that unfeeling indifference with which he made his most horrible witticism on the Zamorin, he suffered the innocent man to be thrown into the common prison. After all the delay of bringing witnesses, Camoens, in a public trial, fully refuted every accusation of his conduct while commissary at Macao, and his enemies were loaded with ignominy and reproach. But Camoens had some creditors, and these detained him in prison a considerable time, till the gentlemen of Goa began to be ashamed that a man of his singular merit should experience such treatment among them. He was set at liberty; and again he assumed the profession of arms, and received the allowance of a gentleman volunteer, a character at this time common in Portuguese India. Soon after, Pedro Barreto, appointed governor of the fort at Sofala, by high promises, allured the poet to attend him thither. The governor of a distant fort, in a barbarous country, shares in some measure the fate of an exile. Yet, though the only motive of Barreto was, in this unpleasant situation, to retain the conversation of Camoens at his table, it was his least care to render the life of his guest agreeable. Chagrined with his treatment, and a considerable time having elapsed in vain dependence upon Barreto, Camoens resolved to return to his native country. A ship, on the homeward voyage, at this time touched at Sofala, and several gentlemen who were on board, were desirous that Camoens should accompany them. But this the governor ungenerously endeavoured to prevent, and charged him with a debt for board. Anthony de Cabra, however, and Hector de Sylveira, paid the demand; and Camoens, says Faria, and the honour of Barreto, were sold together.

After an absence of 16 years, Camoens, in 1569, returned to Lisbon, unhappy even in his arrival, for the pestilence then raged in that city, and prevented his publication for three years. At last, in 1572, he printed his Lusiad, which, in the opening of the first book, in a most elegant turn of compliment, he addressed to his prince, King Sebastian, then in his 18th year. The king, says the French translator, was so pleased with his merit, that he gave the author a pension of 4000 reals, on condition that he should reside at court. But this salary, says the same writer, was withdrawn by Cardinal Henry, who succeeded to the crown of Portugal, lost by Sebastian at the battle of Alcazar.

Though the great patron of one species of literature, a species the reverse of that of Camoens, certain it is, that the author of the Lusiad was utterly neglected by Henry, under whose inglorious reign he died in all the misery of poverty. By some, it is said, he died in an almshouse. It appears, however, that he had not even the certainty of subsistence which these houses provide. He had a black servant, who had grown old with him, and who had long experienced his master's humanity. This grateful Indian, a native of Java, who, according to some writers, saved his master's life in the unhappy shipwreck where he lost his effects, begged in the streets of Lisbon for the only man in Portugal on whom God had bestowed those talents which have a tendency to erect the spirit of a downward age. To the eye of a faithful observer, the fate of Camoens throws throws great light on that of his country, and will appear strictly connected with it. The same ignorance, the same degenerated spirit, which suffered Camoens to depend on his share of the alms begged in the streets by his old hoary servant, the same spirit which caused this sunk the kingdom of Portugal into the most abject vassalage ever experienced by a conquered nation. While the grandees of Portugal were blind to the ruin which impended over them, Camoens beheld it with a pungency of grief which hastened his exit. In one of his letters he has these remarkable words: *Em fim acabarey á vida, e verram todos que fui eficacada a minho patria, &c.* "I am ending the course of my life; the world will witness how I have loved my country. I have returned, not only to die in her bosom, but to die with her."

In this unhappy situation, in 1579, in his 62d year, the year after the fatal defeat of Don Sebastian, died Louis de Camoens, the greatest literary genius ever produced by Portugal; in martial courage and spirit of honour, nothing inferior to her greatest heroes. And in a manner suitable to the poverty in which he died, was he buried.

**CAMOMILE.** See Anthemis, Botany Index.