In one of her rambles on earth, Venus accidentally dropped a certain mirror which she was carrying, and which possessed the quality of beautifying whatever it reflected. A shepherd picked it up; but no sooner had he gazed upon its wondrous reflecting surface, than he forgot forthwith his favourite nymph, and it is to be presumed himself as well; for, like another Narcissus, he became enamoured of his own visage, and could do nothing but admire his own charms. Cupid, who had discovered his mother’s loss, and found out how matters stood with the foolish shepherd, became fearful of the consequences of such a silly error; he, therefore, broke the magic mirror, and transformed the glittering fragments into those bright little flowers, which have ever since been called Venus’s Looking-glass.----Miller mentions seventy-eight kinds of Campanula, the best known of which are the Canterbury-bells, Coventry-bells, the Heath-bell, and the Giant Throat-wort, a flower mentioned by Sir Walter Scott in his poem of ‘Rokeby’:-- “He laid him down, Where purple Heath profusely strown, And Throat-wort, with its azure bell, And Moss, and Thyme, his cushion swell.” (See also CANTERBURY BELLS). =CAMPHOR.=--The Camphire or Camphor-tree (_Laurus Camphora_) is principally found in China and Japan. Camphor is obtained by boiling the wood of this tree, in which the gum exists, ready formed. The Arabians at a very early period were acquainted with the virtues of the Camphor-trees of Sumatra and Borneo, the produce of which is known as Native Camphor. CAMPION.--See Lychnis, and Ragged Robin. =CANDY-TUFT.=--The Iberis, or, as we call it in English, Candy-tuft (from Candia, whence we first received the plant), is singularly devoid of any poetical or traditional lore. Old Gerarde tells us that Lord Edward Zouche sent him some seeds which he sowed in his garden, and reared in due course. He calls it Candie Mustard, _Thlaspi Candiæ_, the latter being one of the names by which the plant was known in France. In that country, more importance seems to have been attached to the flower, or, at any rate, more notice was taken of it by poets and literati, for we find that one of the species was distinguished as being the emblem of architecture, from the fact that its flowers are disposed in stories from the base to the summit of the stalk, resembling in some little degree the open columns of one of the most delicate orders of architecture. Rapin, the French Jesuit poet, alludes to this flower in his poem on Gardens, and briefly gives the mythology of _Thlaspis_ in the following lines:-- “Now, on high stems will Matricaria rear Her silver blooms, and with her will appear Thlaspis, a Cretan youth, who won the fair: Happy if more auspicious Hymen’s rites Had with pure flames adorned their nuptial lights.”