Unhappy Fate of Camoens.—­Camoens the celebrated Portuguese poet, was shipwrecked at the mouth of the river Meco, on the coast of Camboja, and lost his whole property; but through the assistance of his black servant, he saved his life and his poems, which he bore through the waves in one hand,[4] whilst he swam ashore with the other:  his black servant begged in the streets of Lisbon for the support of his master, who died in 1579.  It is said that his death was accelerated by the anguish with which he foresaw the ruin impending over his country.  In one of his letters (says his biographer) he uses these remarkable expressions:  “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.”  He was buried as obscurely as he had closed his life, in St. Anne’s Church, and the following epitaph was inscribed over his grave:—­

      “Here lies Lewis de Camoens,
    Prince of the Poets of his time. 
  He lived poor and miserable, and died
      such, Anno Domini, 1579.”

P.T.W.

The Philosopher’s Stone.—­Sir Kenelm Digby was relating to King James that he had seen the true Philosopher’s Stone, in the possession of a hermit in Italy; and when the king was very curious to understand what sort of a stone it was, and Sir Kenelm being much puzzled in describing it, Sir Francis Bacon, who was present, interposed, and said, “Perhaps it was a whetstone.”

N.B.  There is an old proverbial expression, in which an excitement to a lie was called a whetstone.  P.T.W.

    [4] Precious Salvage.

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