Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881 edition. Excerpt: ... house Register), was examined (in A.d. 1643) by the Arch-biographer and Commentator-in-Chief, Manoel de Faria y Sousa.1 Contemporary authorities (Correa, &c.) threw it back to A.d. 1517. The noble and accredited family of Caamanos (Camanos, Camanhos, Camogs), was called, they say, after the Camao-bird, the Porphyrion or Porphyrio of Aristophanes, Pliny, Juvenal, and "Theagenes and Chariclea." This Phoenicopter (flamingo) become a phoenix, was the hereditary duenna of the house, whose scutcheon shows a kind of dragon rising from Promethean rocks. The Camoens who produced warriors and bards, suggesting hereditary genius,2 date from the days of the semi-mythical Don Pelayo; they distinguished themselves in the wars of the twelfth century; they owned seventeen parishes called "The Camoeiras"; and their castled house stood near Cape Finisterre of Gallicia, the Promontorium Nerium (of the Nerii), or Artabrum (of the Artabri). Thus our Poet was originally of Gallego strain, and Fanshawe says truly: --spaine gaue me noble Birth: Coimbra, Arts, lisbon, a high-plac't loue, and Courtly parts; 1 "F. y S." noticed in chap. i. 3. He found that the poet was twenty-five years old in 1550, and consequently was born at the end of 1524, or in early 1525. 2 Vasco Fernandez (Pires) de Camoens was one of the best poets of the fourteenth century; and to him are attributed the two "Gallego" Sonnets (ccxc. and ccxci.) printed among those of our Poet. ending with a quaint allusion to the Poet's sorrows: --My Country (Nothing--yes) Immortal Prayse (So did I, Her) Beasts cannot browse on Bayes. I subjoin for purposes of comparison the dates of the great neo-Latin Poets and Poems who followed the Conteurs of Le gaye Saber: --1. Poema del Cid Campeador;..."
