CA\IOENS, DE, the epic poet of Portugal, was born at Lisbon in 1517. Ills family was of con siderable note, and originally Spanish. His misfortunes began early in life. In his infancy, his father, Simon Vaz tie Camoens, commander of a vessel, was ship. wrecked at Goa, where, with his life, the greater part of his fortune was lost. His mother, however, provided for his education at the university of Coimbra ; where, in spite of Voltaire's rash assertion, that his youth was spent in idleness and ignorance, it appears from his works that he must have imbibed the matter as well as the spirit of classical learning. When he left the university, lie appeared at the court of Lisbon, and mixed in its fashionable intrigues ; but his personal beauty, his ardour and accomplishments, are supposed to have tempted him to amours above his rank, for he was banished from court ; and as he has ascribed, in his poetry, the misfortunes of that period of his life to love, he is conjectured, like Ovid, to have cherished the pas sion too ambitiously.
He retired from court to his mother's house at San tarene, where he •began his poem on the discovery cf India, but quitted his retirement to join an expedition which sailed from Portugal against Ceuta, in Africa. In a naval engagement with the Moors in the Strait: of Gibraltar, he lost an eye, but distinguished his bravery so much in this and other actions, that he was recalled to court. From thence he was chased once more by the charactei istic jealousy of his countrymen, who still dreaded poetic gallantry amongst the court ladies, though his countenance had been so sadly marred.
In 1553, he sailed to India, with a resolution never to return, and little foreseeing the evils that were to shake that resolution.
When he arrived in India, an expedition was ready to sail to avenge the King of Cochin on the King of Pimento.. Without any rest on shore, he joined this armament, and in the conquest of the Alagada islands, displayed his usual bravery, not forgetting his duty as a poet, to celebrate the victory.
In the year following, he attended Manuel de Vas concello 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 adja cent 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 had tranquillity to resume his great poem, but imprudently he stept out of the epic strain to indulge in satirizing the viceroy Francisco Barctto, by whom he was banished to China. Even in exile, however, he still found friends, and his talents made him useful. He was appointed commissary of the estates of the defunct in the island of Macao, where lie continued for several years, proceeding with his Lusiad, and acquiring a small fortune. This fortune he unhappily lost on his return to Goa, by the permission of a new viceroy. He was shipwrecked in the gulf, near the mouth of the river Mecon, saving only his poems, which he held in one hand, whilst he saved himself with the other. At last, reaching Goa, he found a friend in the new viceroy, Don Constantine de Braganza. Still, however, the fate of the poet seemed to be " Marking each change of place with change of woe."t A new governor succeeded Constantine, who suf es'ered Camoens to be thrown into a common prison, on a (-barge of misconduct in the commissariat of Macao. He fully acquitted himself at a -nblic trial, but was detained in confinement by his creditors till the gentle men of Goa set him at liberty. He now resumed the profession of arms, and attended Don Pedro Baretto, who went as governor to the distant and barbarous settlement of Sofala. A ship bound homeward having touched at this place, Camoens determined to return in her to Europe. Ile was detained for a while by the governor, on a mean charge for the hospitality he had received at his table. Two friends of the poet paid the pitiful demand ; and thus, says Faria, Camoens and the honour of Baretto were sold together.