Chapter 2

Eberhard Freiherr von Bodenhausen published in 1905 a very comprehensive monograph onGerard David and his School(Munich, F. Bruckmann), together with acatalogue raisonnéof his works, which, after careful sifting, are reduced to the number of forty-three.

(P. G. K.)

DAVID, JACQUES LOUIS(1748-1825), French painter, was born in Paris on the 30th of April 1748. His father was killed in a duel, when the boy was but nine years old. His education was begun at the Collège des Quatre Nations, where he obtained a smattering of the classics; but, his artistic talent being already obvious, he was soon placed by his guardian in the studio of François Boucher. Boucher speedily realized that his own erotic style did not suit the lad’s genius, and recommended him to J. M. Vien, the pioneer of the classical reaction in painting. Under him David studied for some years, and, after several attempts to win theprix de Rome, at last succeeded in 1775, with his “Loves of Antiochus and Stratonice.” Vien, who had just been appointed director of the French Academy at Rome, carried the youth with him to that city. The classical reaction was now in full tide; Winckelmann was writing, Raphael Mengs painting; and the treasures of the Vatican galleries helped to confirm David in a taste already moulded by so many kindred influences. This severely classical spirit inspired his first important painting, “Date obolum Belisario,” exhibited at Paris in 1780. The picture exactly suited the temper of the times, and was an immense success. It was followed by others, painted on the same principles, but with greater perfection of art: “The Grief of Andromache” (1783), “The Oath of the Horatii” (Salon, 1785), “The Death of Socrates,” “Love of Paris and Helen” (1788), “Brutus” (1789). In the French drama an unimaginative imitation of ancient models had long prevailed; even in art Poussin and Le Sueur were successful by expressing a bias in the same direction; and in the first years of the revolutionary movement the fashion of imitating the ancients even in dress and manners went to the most extravagant length. At this very time David returned to Paris; he was now painter to the king, Louis XVI., who had been the purchaser of his principal works, and his popularity was soon immense. At the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789, David was carried away by the flood of enthusiasm that made all the intellect of France believe in a new era of equality and emancipation from all the ills of life.

The success of his sketch for the picture of the “Oath of the Tennis Court,” and his pronounced republicanism, secured David’s election to the Convention in September 1792, by theSection du Muséum, and he quickly distinguished himself by the defence of two French artists in Rome who had fallen into the merciless hands of the Inquisition. As, in this matter, the behaviour of the authorities of the French Academy in Rome had been dictated by the tradition of subservience to authority, he used his influence to get it suppressed. In the January following his election into the Convention his vote was given for the king’s death. Thus the man who was so greatly indebted to the Roman academy and to Louis XVI. assisted in the destruction of both, no doubt in obedience to a principle, like the act of Brutus in condemning his sons—a subject he painted with all his powers. Cato and stoicism were the order of the day. Hitherto the actor had walked the stage in modern dress. Brutus had been applauded in red-heeled shoes andculottes jarretées; but Talma, advised by David, appeared in toga and sandals before an enthusiastic audience. At this period of his life Mademoiselle de Noailles persuaded him to paint a sacred subject, with Christ as the hero. When the picture was done, the Saviour was found to be another Cato. “I told you so,” he replied to the expostulations of the lady, “there is no inspiration in Christianity now!” David’s revolutionary ideas, which led to his election to the presidency of the Convention and to the committee of general security, inspired his pictures “Last Moments of Lepelletier de Saint-Fargeau” and “Marat Assassinated.” He also arranged the programme of the principal republican festivals. When Napoleon rose to power David became his enthusiastic admirer. His picture of Napoleon on horseback pointing the way to Italy is now in Berlin. During this period he also painted the “Rape of the Sabines” and “Leonidas at Thermopylae.” Appointed painter to the emperor, David produced the two notable pictures “The Coronation” (of Josephine) and the “Distribution of the Eagles.”

On the return of the Bourbons the painter was exiled with the other remaining regicides, and retired to Brussels, where he againreturned to classical subjects: “Amor quitting Psyche,” “Mars disarmed by Venus,” &c. He rejected the offer, made through Baron Humboldt, of the office of minister of fine arts at Berlin, and remained at Brussels till his death on the 29th of December 1825. His end was true to his whole career and to his nationality. While dying, a print of the Leonidas, one of his favourite subjects, was submitted to him. After vaguely looking at it a long time, “Il n’y a que moi qui pouvais concevoir la tête de Léonidas,” he whispered, and died. His friends and his party thought to carry the body back to his beloved Paris for burial, but the government of the day arrested the procession at the frontier, an act which caused some scandal, and furnished the occasion of a terrible song of Béranger’s.

It is difficult for a generation which has witnessed another complete revolution in the standards of artistic taste to realize the secret of David’s immense popularity in his own day. His style is severely academic, his colour lacking in richness and warmth, his execution hard and uninteresting in its very perfection. Subjects and treatment alike are inspired by the passing fashion of an age which had deceived itself into believing that it was living and moving in the spirit of classical antiquity. The inevitable reaction of the romantic movement made the masterpieces, which had filled the men of the Revolution with enthusiasm, seem cold and lifeless to those who had been taught to expect in art that atmosphere of mystery which in nature is everywhere present. Yet David was a great artist, and exercised in his day and generation a great influence. His pictures are magnificent in their composition and their draughtsmanship; and his keen observation and insight into character are evident, especially in his portraits, notably of Madame Récamier, of the Conventional Gérard and of Boissy d’Anglas.

See E. J. Delécluze,Louis David, son école et son temps(Paris, 1855), andLe Peintre Louis David. Souvenirs et documents inédits, by J. L. Jules David, the painter’s grandson (Paris, 1880).

DAVID, PIERRE JEAN(1789-1856), usually called David d’Angers, French sculptor, was born at Angers on the 12th of March 1789. His father was a sculptor, or rather a carver, but he had thrown aside the mallet and taken the musket, fighting against the Chouans of La Vendée. He returned to his trade at the end of the civil war, to find his customers gone, so that young David was born into poverty. As the boy grew up his father wished to force him into some more lucrative and certain way of life. At last he succeeded in surmounting the opposition to his becoming a sculptor, and in his eighteenth year left for Paris to study the art upon a capital of eleven francs. After struggling against want for a year and a half, he succeeded in taking the prize at the École des Beaux-Arts. An annuity of 600 francs (£24) was granted by the municipality of his native town in 1809, and in 1811 David’s “Epaminondas” gained theprix de Rome. He spent five years in Rome, during which his enthusiasm for the works of Canova was often excessive.

Returning from Rome about the time of the restoration of the Bourbons, he would not remain in the neighbourhood of the Tuileries, which swarmed with foreign conquerors and returned royalists, and accordingly went to London. Here Flaxman and others visited upon him the sins of David the painter, to whom he was erroneously supposed to be related. With great difficulty he made his way to Paris again, where a comparatively prosperous career opened upon him. His medallions and busts were in much request, and orders for monumental works also came to him. One of the best of these was that of Gutenberg at Strassburg; but those he himself valued most were the statue of Barra, a drummer boy who continued to beat his drum till the moment of death in the war in La Vendée, and the monument to the Greek liberator Bozzaris, consisting in a young female figure called “Reviving Greece,” of which Victor Hugo said: “It is difficult to see anything more beautiful in the world; this statue joins the grandeur of Pheidias to the expressive manner of Puget.” David’s busts and medallions were very numerous, and among his sitters may be found not only the illustrious men and women of France, but many others both of England and Germany—countries which he visited professionally in 1827 and 1829. His medallions, it is affirmed, number 500. He died on the 4th of January 1856. David’s fame rests firmly on his pediment of the Panthéon, his monument to General Gobert in Père Lachaise and his marble “Philopoemen” in the Louvre. In the Musée David at Angers is an almost complete collection of his works either in the form of copies or in the original moulds. As an example of his benevolence of character may be mentioned his rushing off to the sickbed of Rouget de Lisle, the author of the “Marseillaise Hymn,” modelling and carving him in marble without delay, making a lottery of the work, and sending to the poet in the extremity of need the seventy-two pounds which resulted from the sale.

See H. Jouin,David d’Angers et ses relations littéraires(1890);Lettres de P. J. David d’Angers à Louis Dupré(Paris, 1891);Collection de portraits des contemporains d’après les médaillons de P. J. David(Paris, 1838).

DAVIDISTS,a fancy name rather than a recognized designation for three religious sects. It has been applied (1) to the followers (if he had any) of David of Dinant, in Belgium, the teacher or pupil of Amalric (Amaury) of Bena, both of whom taught apparently a species of pantheism. David’sQuaterni, orQuaternuli, condemned and burnt at Paris (1209), is a lost book, known only by references in Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. Its author would have been burnt had he not fled. The name has been given (2) to the followers of David George or Joris (q.v.), and (3) to the followers of Francis Dávid (1510-1579), the apostle of Transylvanian unitarianism. (SeeSocinus,Unitarianism.)

DAVIDSON, ANDREW BRUCE(1831-1902), Scottish divine, was born in 1831 at Kirkhill in Aberdeenshire, where his father Andrew Davidson had a farm. The Davidsons belonged to the congregation of James Robertson (1803-1860) of Ellon, one of the ministers of Strathbogie Presbytery, which in the controversy which led to the disruption, resisted the “dangerous claims of the established church to self-government.” When the disruption came the principles at stake were keenly canvassed in Ellon, and eventually Andrew Davidson, senior, went with the Free Church. In 1845 the boy, who had been a “herd” on the farm, went for six months to the grammar school at Aberdeen and was there prepared for a university bursary, which was sufficient to pay his fees, but no more. During his four years at the university his mother supplied him fortnightly with provisions from the farm; sometimes she walked the whole twenty miles from Kirkhill and handed the coach fee to her son. He graduated in 1849. At the university he had acquired a distrust of philosophy, and found it difficult to choose between mathematical and linguistic studies. A Free Church school having been opened in Ellon, he became master there for three years. Here he developed special aptitude for linguistic and philological studies. Besides Hebrew he taught himself French, German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish. In November 1852 he entered New College, Edinburgh. There he took the four years’ theological course, and was licensed in 1856. For two years he preached occasionally and took vacancies. In 1858 the New College authorities appointed him assistant to the professor of Hebrew. He taught during the winter, and in the long vacation continued his preparation for his life work. One year he worked in Germany under Ewald, another year he went to Syria to study Arabic. In 1862 he published the first part of a commentary on Job. It was never finished and deals only with one-third of the book, but it is recognized as the first really scientific commentary on the Old Testament in the English language. In 1863 he was appointed by the general assembly professor of oriental languages at New College. He was junior colleague of Dr John Duncan (Rabbi Duncan) till 1870, and then for thirty years sole professor. He was a member of the Old Testament revision committee, and his work was recognized by several honorary distinctions, LL.D. (Aberdeen), D.D. (Edinburgh), Litt.D. (Cambridge). Among his students were Professors Elmslie, Skinner, Harper of Melbourne, Walker of Belfast, George Adam Smith of Glasgow and W. Robertson Smith. He understood it to be the first duty of an exegete to ascertain the meaning of the writer, and he showed that this could be done by the use of grammar and history and the historical imagination. He supplied guidance when it was muchneeded as to the methods and results of the higher criticism. Being a master of its methods, but very cautious in accepting assertions about its results, he secured attention early in the Free Church for scientific criticism, and yet threw the whole weight of his learning and his caustic wit into the argument against critical extravagance. He had thought himself into the ideas and points of view of the Hebrews, and his work in Old Testament theology is unrivalled. He excels as an expositor of the governing Hebrew ideas such as holiness, righteousness, Spirit of God, Messianism. In 1897 he was chosen moderator of the general assembly, but his health prevented his accepting the post. He died, unmarried, on the 26th of January 1902.

Besides the commentary on Job he published a book on theHebrew Accents, the only Scottish performance of the kind since the days of Thomas Boston. HisIntroductory Hebrew Grammarhas been widely adopted as a class-book in theological colleges. HisHebrew Syntaxhas the same admirable clearness, precision and teaching quality. HisCommentary on the Epistle to the Hebrewsis one of a series of handbooks for Bible classes. These were followed by commentaries on Job, Ezekiel, Nahum, Habakkuk and Zephaniah, in the Cambridge series; and a Bible-class primer onThe Exile and Restoration. His lectures onOld Testament Prophecywere published after his death by Professor J. A. Paterson. TheTheology of the Old Testamentin the “International Theological Library” is a posthumous volume edited by Professor Salmond. “Isaiah” in theTemple Biblewas finished, but not revised, when he died; and he also had in hand the volume on Isaiah for theInternational Critical Commentary; to which must be added a mass of articles contributed toThe Imperial Bible Dictionary,The Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the chief religious reviews. Various articles in Dr Hastings’Bible Dictionarywere by Davidson, especially the article “God.” Two volumes of sermons,The Called of God, andWaiting upon God, were published from MS. after Davidson’s death.

DAVIDSON, JOHN(1857-1909), British poet, playwright and novelist, son of the Rev. Alexander Davidson, a minister of the Evangelical Union, was born at Barrhead, Renfrewshire, Scotland, on the 11th of April 1857. After a schooling at the Highlanders’ Academy, Greenock, at the age of thirteen he was set to work in that town, by helping in a sugar factory laboratory and then in the town analyst’s office; and at fifteen he went back to his old school as a pupil-teacher. In 1876 he studied for a session at Edinburgh University, and then went as a master to various Scotch schools till 1890, varying his experiences in 1884 by being a clerk in a Glasgow thread firm. He had married in 1885, and meanwhile his literary inclinations had shown themselves, without attracting any public success, in the publication of his poetical and fantastic plays,Bruce(1886),Smith; a tragic farce(1888) andScaramouch in Naxos(1889). Determining at all costs to follow his literary vocation, he went to London in 1890, but at first had a hard struggle. There his prose-romancePerfervid(1890) was published, one of the most original and fascinating stories of “young blood” and child adventure ever written, but for some reason it did not catch the public; and a sort of sequel inThe Great Men(1891) met no better fate. He contributed, however, to newspapers and became known among literary journalists, and his volume of verseIn a Music-Hall(1891) prepared the way for the genuine success two years later of hisFleet Street Eclogues(1893), which sounded a new and vigorous note and at once established his position among the younger generation of poets. He subsequently produced several more books in prose, romantic stories likeBaptist Lake(1894) andEarl Lavender(1895), and an admirable piece of descriptive landscape writing inA Random Itinerary(1894); but his acceptance as a poet gave a more emphatic impulse to his work in verse, and most attention was given to the increasing proof of his powers shown in hisBallads and Songs(1894),Second Series of Fleet Street Eclogues(1895),New Ballads(1896),The Last Ballad, &c.(1898), all full of remarkably fresh and unconventional beauty. In spite of the strangely neglected genius of this earlyPerfervid, it is accordingly as a writer of verse rather than of prose-fiction that he occupies a leading place, with a decided character of his own, in recent English literature, his revival of a modernized ballad form being a considerable achievement in itself, and his poems being packed with fine thought, robust and masterful in expression and imagery. Meanwhile in 1896 he produced an English verse adaptation, inFor the Crown(acted by Forbes Robertson and Mrs Patrick Campbell), of François Coppée’s dramaPour la couronne, which had considerable success and was revived in 1905; and he wrote several other literary plays, remarkable none the less for dramatic qualities,—Godfrida(1898),Self’s the Man(1901),The Knight of the Maypole(1902) andThe Theatrocrat(1905), in the last of which a tendency to be extraordinary is rather too manifest. This tendency was not absent from his volume ofHoliday and Other Poems(1906), containing many fine things, together with an “essay on blank verse” illustrated from his own compositions, the outspoken criticisms of a writer of admitted originality and insight, but not devoid of eccentric volubility. But if the identification of “eccentricity” and “greatness” by Cosmo Mortimer in Mr Davidson’s ownPerfervidsometimes obtrudes itself on the memory in considering his more peculiarly “robust” and somewhat volcanic deliverances, no such objection can detract from the genuine inspiration of his best work, in which the true poetic afflatus is unmistakable. This is to be found in his poems published from 1893 to 1898, five years during which his reputation steadily and deservedly grew,—theFleet Street Eclogues, with their passionate modern criticism of life combined with their breath of rural beauty, and such intense ballads as those “Of a Nun,” and “Of Heaven and Hell.” In his ethical and didactic utterances,The Testament of a VivisectorandThe Testament of a Man Forbid(1901),The Testament of an Empire Builder(1902),Mammon and his Message(1908), &c., the fine quality of the verse is wedded with a certain fervid satirical journalism of subject, less admirable than the detachment of thought in the earlier volumes. In later years he lived at Penzance, provided with a small Civil List pension, but otherwise badly off, for his writings brought in very little money. On March 23rd, 1909, he disappeared, in circumstances pointing to suicide, and six months later his body was found in the sea.

See an article by Filson Young on “The New Poetry,” in theFortnightly Review, January 1909.

DAVIDSON, RANDALL THOMAS(1848- ), archbishop of Canterbury, son of Henry Davidson, of Muirhouse, Edinburgh, was born in Edinburgh and educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Oxford. He took orders in 1874 and held a curacy at Dartford, in Kent, till 1877, when he became resident chaplain and private secretary to Dr Tait, archbishop of Canterbury, a position which he occupied till Dr Tait’s death, and retained for a short time (1882-1883) under his successor Dr Benson. He married in 1878 Edith, the second daughter of Archbishop Tait, whoseLifehe eventually wrote (1891). In 1882 he became honorary chaplain and sub-almoner to Queen Victoria, and in the following year was appointed dean of Windsor, and domestic chaplain to the queen. His advice upon state matters was constantly sought by the queen and greatly valued. From 1891 to 1903 he was clerk of the closet, first to Queen Victoria and afterwards to King Edward VII. He was made bishop of Rochester in 1891, and was translated to Winchester in 1895. In 1903 he succeeded Temple as archbishop of Canterbury. The new archbishop, without being one of the English divines who have made notable contributions to theological learning, already had a great reputation for ecclesiastical statesmanship; and in subsequent years his diplomatic abilities found ample scope in dealing not only with the difficulties caused in the church by doctrinal questions, but pre-eminently with the education crisis, and with the new problems arising in the enlarged Anglican Communion. As the chief representative of the Church of England in the House of Lords, his firmness, combined with broadmindedness, in regard to the attitude of the nonconformists towards denominational education, made his influence widely felt. In 1904 he visited Canada and the United States, and was present at the triennial general convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States and Canada. In 1908 he presided at the Pan-Anglican congress held in London, and at the Lambeth conference which followed. He had edited in 1889The Lambeth Conferences, an historical account of the conferences of 1867, 1878 and 1888, giving the official reports and resolutions, and the sermons preached on these occasions.

DAVIDSON, SAMUEL(1807-1898), Irish biblical scholar, was born near Ballymena in Ireland. He was educated at the Royal College of Belfast, entered the Presbyterian ministry in 1835, and was appointed professor of biblical criticism at his own college. Becoming a Congregationalist, he accepted in 1842 the chair of biblical criticism, literature and oriental languages at the Lancashire Independent College at Manchester; but he was obliged to resign in 1857, being brought into collision with the college authorities by the publication of an introduction to the Old Testament entitledThe Text of the Old Testament, and the Interpretation of the Bible, written for a new edition of Horne’sIntroduction to the Sacred Scripture. Its liberal tendencies caused him to be accused of unsound views, and a most exhaustive report prepared by the Lancashire College committee was followed by numerous pamphlets for and against. After his resignation a fund of £3000 was subscribed as a testimonial by his friends. In 1862 he removed to London to become scripture examiner in London University, and he spent the rest of his life in literary work. He died on the 1st of April 1898. Davidson was a member of the Old Testament Revision Committee. Among his principal works are:—Sacred Hermeneutics Developed and Applied(1843), rewritten and republished asA Treatise on Biblical Criticism(1852),Lectures on Ecclesiastical Polity(1848),An Introduction to the New Testament(1848-1851),The Hebrew Text of the Old Testament Revised(1855),Introduction to the Old Testament(1862),On a Fresh Revision of the Old Testament(1873),The Canon of the Bible(1877),The Doctrine of Last Things in the New Testament(1883), besides translations of the New Testament from Von Tischendorf’s text, Gieseler’sEcclesiastical History(1846) and Fürst’sHebrew and Chaldee Lexicon.

DAVIDSON, THOMAS(1817-1885), British palaeontologist, was born in Edinburgh on the 17th of May 1817. His parents possessed considerable landed property in Midlothian. Educated partly in the university at Edinburgh and partly in France, Italy and Switzerland, and early acquiring an interest in natural history, he benefited greatly by acquaintance with foreign languages and literature, and with men of science in different countries. He was induced in 1837, through the influence of Leopold von Buch, to devote his special attention to the brachiopoda, and in course of time he became the highest authority on this group. The great task of his life was theMonograph of British Fossil Brachiopoda, published by the Palaeontographical Society (1850-1886). This work, with supplements, comprises six quarto volumes with more than 200 plates drawn on stone by the author. He also prepared an exhaustive memoir on “Recent Brachiopoda,” published by the Linnean Society. He was elected F.R.S. in 1857. He was awarded in 1865 the Wollaston medal by the Geological Society of London, and in 1870 a Royal medal by the Royal Society; and in 1882 the degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by the university of St Andrews. He died at Brighton on the 14th of October 1885, bequeathing his fine collection of recent and fossil brachiopoda to the British Museum.

See biography with portrait and list of papers inGeol. Mag.for 1871, p. 145.

DAVIES, DAVID CHARLES(1826-1891), Welsh nonconformist divine, was born at Aberystwyth on the 11th of May 1826, his father being a merchant and a pioneer of Welsh Methodism, his mother a niece of Thomas Charles (q.v.) of Bala. He was educated in his native town by a noted schoolmaster, John Evans, at Bala College, and at University College, London, where he graduated B.A. in 1847 and M.A. (in mathematics) in 1849. He had already begun to preach, and after an evangelistic tour in South Wales supplied the pulpit of the English presbyterian church at Newtown for six months, and settled as pastor of the bilingual church at Builth in 1851. He returned to this charge after a pastorate at Liverpool (1853-1856), left it again in 1858 for Newtown, and went in May 1859 to the Welsh church at Jewin Crescent, London. Here he remained until 1876, and from that date till 1882, although living at Bangor for reasons of health, had the chief oversight of the church. In 1888 he accepted the principalship of the Calvinistic Methodist College at Trevecca in Brecknockshire. His work here was successful, but short; he died at Bangor on the 26th of September 1891, and was buried at Aberystwyth.

Though Davies stood somewhat apart from the main currents of thought both without and within his church, and was largely unknown to English audiences or readers, he exercised a strong influence on Welsh life and thought in the 19th century. He was a serious student, especially of anti-theistic positions, a good speaker, and a frequent contributor to Welsh theological journals. Several of his articles have been collected and published, the most noteworthy being expositions onThe First Epistle of John(1889),Ephesians(2 vols., 1896, 1901),Psalms(1897),Romans(1902); andThe Atonement and Intercession of Christ(1899, English trans. by D. E. Jenkins, 1901).

DAVIES, SIR JOHN(1569-1626), English philosophical poet, was baptized on the 16th of April 1569, at Tisbury, Wiltshire, where his parents lived at the manor-house of Chicksgrove. He was educated at Winchester College, and became a commoner of Queen’s College, Oxford, in 1585. In 1588 he entered the Middle Temple, and was called to the bar in 1595. In his general onslaught on literature in 1599 the archbishop of Canterbury ordered to be burnt the notorious and now excessively rare volume,All Ovid’s Elegies, 3 Bookes, by C. M. Epigrams by J. D.(Middleburgh, 1598?), which contained posthumous work by Marlowe. The epigrams by Davies, although not devoid of wit, were coarse enough to deserve their fate. It is probable that they were earlier in date of composition than the charming fragment entitledOrchestra(1596), written in praise of dancing. The poet, in the person of Antinoüs, tries to induce Penelope to dance by arguing that all harmonious natural processes partake of the nature of a conscious and well-ordered dance. He closes his argument by foreshadowing in a magic mirror the revels of the court of Cynthia (Elizabeth).Orchestrawas dedicated to the author’s “very friend, Master Richard Martin,” but in the next year the friends quarrelled, and Davies was expelled from the society for having struck Martin with a cudgel in the hall of the Middle Temple. He spent the year after his expulsion at Oxford in the composition of his philosophical poem on the nature of the soul and its immortality—Nosce teipsum(1599). The style of the work was entirely novel; and the stanza in which it was written—the decasyllabic quatrain with alternate rhymes—had never been so effectively handled. Its force, eloquence and ingenuity, the orderly and lucid arrangement of its matter, place it among the finest of English didactic poems. In 1599 he also published a volume of twenty-six graceful acrostics on the wordsElisabetha Regina, entitledHymns to Astraea. He produced no more poetry except his contributions to Francis Davison’sPoetical Rhapsody(1608). These were two dialogues which had been written as entertainments for the queen, and “Yet other Twelve Wonders of the World,” satirical epigrams on the courtier, the divine, the maid, &c., and “A Hymn in praise of Music.” Ten sonnets to Philomel are signed J. D., and are assigned to Davies (Poetical Rhapsody, ed. A. H. Bullen, 1890). In 1601 Davies was restored to his position at the bar, after making his apologies to Martin, and in the same year he sat for Corfe Castle in parliament. James I. received the author ofNosce teipsumwith great favour, and sent him (1603) to Ireland as solicitor-general, conferring the honour of knighthood upon him in the same year. In 1606 he was promoted to be attorney-general for Ireland, and created serjeant-at-arms. Of the difficulties in the way of the prosecution of his work, and his untiring industry in overcoming them, there is abundant evidence in his letters to Cecil preserved in theState Papers on Ireland. One of his chief aims was to establish the Protestant religion firmly in Ireland, and he took strict measures to enforce the law for attendance at church. With the same end in view he took an active part in the “plantation” of Ulster. In 1612 he published his proseDiscoverie of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued untill the beginning of his Majestie’s happie raigne.1In the same year he entered the Irish parliament as member for Fermanagh, and was elected speaker after a scene of disorder in which theCatholic nominee, Sir John Everard, who had been installed, was forcibly ejected. In the capacity of speaker he delivered an excellent address reviewing previous Irish parliaments. He resigned his Irish offices in 1619, and sat in the English parliament of 1621 for Newcastle-under-Lyme. With Sir Robert Cotton he was one of the founders of the Society of Antiquaries. He was appointed lord chief justice in 1626, but died suddenly (December 8th) before he could enter on the office. He had married (1609) Eleanor Touchet, daughter of George, Baron Audley. She developed eccentricity, verging on madness, and wrote several fanatical books on prophecy.

In 1615 Davies published at DublinLe Primer Discours des Cases et Matters in Ley resolues et adjudges en les Courts del Roy en cest Realme(reprinted 1628). He issued an edition of his poems in 1622. His prose publications were mainly posthumous.The Question concerning Impositions, Tonnage, Poundage ...was printed in 1656, and four of the tracts relating to Ireland, with an account of Davies and his services to that country, were edited by G. Chalmers in 1786. His works were edited by Dr A. B. Grosart (3 vols. 1869-1876), with a full biography, for the Fuller Worthies Library.He is not to be confounded with another poet,John Daviesof Hereford (1565?-1618), among whose numerous volumes of verse may be mentionedMirum in modum(1602),Microcosmus(1603),The Holy Roode(1609),Wittes Pilgrimage(c.1610),The Scourge of Folly(c.1611),The Muses Sacrifice(1612) andWittes Bedlam(1607); hisScourge of Follycontains verses addressed to many of his contemporaries, to Shakespeare among others; he also wroteA Select Second Husband for Sir Thomas Overbury’s Wife(1616), andThe Writing Schoolmaster(earliest known edition, 1633); his works were collected by Dr A. B. Grosart (2 vols., 1873) for the Chertsey Worthies Library.

He is not to be confounded with another poet,John Daviesof Hereford (1565?-1618), among whose numerous volumes of verse may be mentionedMirum in modum(1602),Microcosmus(1603),The Holy Roode(1609),Wittes Pilgrimage(c.1610),The Scourge of Folly(c.1611),The Muses Sacrifice(1612) andWittes Bedlam(1607); hisScourge of Follycontains verses addressed to many of his contemporaries, to Shakespeare among others; he also wroteA Select Second Husband for Sir Thomas Overbury’s Wife(1616), andThe Writing Schoolmaster(earliest known edition, 1633); his works were collected by Dr A. B. Grosart (2 vols., 1873) for the Chertsey Worthies Library.

1Edited by Henry Morley in hisIreland under Elizabeth and James I.(1890).

DAVIES(Davisius),JOHN(1679-1732), English classical scholar and critic, was born in London on the 22nd of April 1679. He was educated at Charterhouse and Queens’ College, Cambridge, of which society he was elected fellow (July 7th, 1701). He subsequently became rector of Fen Ditton, prebendary of Ely, and president of his college. He died on the 7th of March 1731-1732, and was buried in the college chapel. Davies was considered one of the best commentators on Cicero, his attention being chiefly devoted to the philosophical works of that author. Amongst these he edited theTusculanae disputationes(1709),De natura deorum(1718),De divinationeandDe fato(1725),Academica(1725),De legibus(1727),De finibus(1728). His nearly finished notes on theDe officiishe bequeathed to Dr Richard Mead, with a view to their publication. Mead, finding himself unable to carry out the undertaking, transferred the notes to Thomas Bentley (nephew of the famous Richard Bentley), by whose carelessness they were burnt. Davies’s editions, which were intended to supplement those of Graevius, show great learning and an extensive knowledge of the history and systems of philosophy, but he allows himself too much licence in the matter of emendation. He also edited Maximus of Tyre’sDissertationes(1703); the works of Caesar (1706); theOctaviusof Minucius Felix (1707); theEpitome divinarum institutionumof Lactantius (1718). Although on intimate terms with Richard Bentley, he found himself unable to agree with the great scholar in regard to his dispute with Trinity College.

DAVIES, SIR LOUIS HENRY(1845- ), Canadian politician and jurist, was born in Prince Edward Island in 1845, of Huguenot descent. From 1869 to 1879 he took part in local politics, and was premier from 1876-1879; in 1882 he entered the Canadian parliament as a Liberal, and from 1896 to 1901 was minister of marine and fisheries. In the latter year he became one of the judges of the supreme court of Canada. In 1877 he was counsel for Great Britain before the Anglo-American fisheries arbitration at Halifax; in 1897 he was a joint delegate to Washington with Sir Wilfrid Laurier on the Bering Sea seal question; and in 1898-1899 a member of the Anglo-American joint high commission at Quebec.

DAVIES, RICHARD(c.1505-1581), Welsh bishop and scholar, was born in North Wales, and was educated at New Inn Hall, Oxford, becoming vicar of Burnham, Buckinghamshire, in 1550. Being a reformer he took refuge at Geneva during the reign of Mary, returning to England and to parochial work after the accession of Elizabeth in 1558. His connexion with Wales was renewed almost at once; for, after serving on a commission which visited the Welsh dioceses, he was, in January 1560, consecrated bishop of St Asaph, whence he was translated, early in 1561, to the bishopric of St Davids. As a bishop Davies was an earnest reformer, very industrious, active and liberal, but not very scrupulous with regard to the property of the church. He was a member of the council of Wales, was very friendly with Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, and was regarded both by Parker and by William Cecil, Lord Burghley, as a trustworthy adviser on Welsh concerns. Another of the bishop’s friends was Walter Devereux, first earl of Essex. Assisting William Salisbury, Davies took part in translating the New Testament into Welsh, and also did some work on the Welsh translation of the Book of Common Prayer. He helped to revise the “Bishops’ Bible” of 1568, being himself responsible for the book of Deuteronomy, and the second book of Samuel. He died on the 7th of November 1581, and was buried in Abergwili church.

DAVILA, ENRICO CATERINO(1576-1631), Italian historian, was descended from a Spanish noble family. His immediate ancestors had been constables of the kingdom of Cyprus for the Venetian republic since 1464. But in 1570 the island was taken by the Turks; and Antonio Davila, the father of the historian, had to leave it, despoiled of all he possessed. He travelled into Spain and France, and finally returned to Padua, and at Sacco on the 30th of October 1576 his youngest son, Enrico Caterino, was born. About 1583 Antonio took this son to France, where he became a page in the service of Catherine de’ Medici, wife of King Henry II. In due time he entered the military service, and fought through the civil wars until the peace in 1598. He then returned to Padua, where, and subsequently at Parma, he led a studious life until, when war broke out, he entered the service of the republic of Venice and served with distinction in the field. But during the whole of this active life, many details of which are very interesting as illustrative of the life and manners of the time, he never lost sight of a design which he had formed at a very early period, of writing the history of those civil wars in France in which he had borne a part, and during which he had had so many opportunities of closely observing the leading personages and events. This work was completed about 1630, and was offered in vain by the author to all the publishers in Venice. At last one Tommaso Baglíoni, who had no work for his presses, undertook to print the manuscript, on condition that he should be free to leave off if more promising work offered itself. The printing of theIstoria delle guerre civili di Franciawas, however, completed, and the success and sale of the work were immediate and enormous. Over two hundred editions followed, of which perhaps the best is the one published in Paris in 1644. Davila was murdered, while on his way to take possession of the government of Cremona for Venice in July 1631, by a ruffian, with whom some dispute seems to have arisen concerning the furnishing of the relays of horses ordered for his use by the Venetian government.

TheIstoriawas translated into French by G. Baudouin (Paris, 1642); into Spanish by Varen de Soto (Madrid, 1651, and Antwerp, 1686); into English by W. Aylesbury (London, 1647), and by Charles Cotterel (London, 1666), and into Latin by Pietro Francesco Cornazzano (Rome, 1745). The best account of the life of Davila is that by Apostolo Zeno, prefixed to an edition of the history printed at Venice in 2 vols. in 1733. Peter Bayle is severe on certain historical inaccuracies of Davila, and it is true that Davila must be read with due remembrance of the fact that he was not only a Catholic but the especial protégé of Catherine de’ Medici, but it is not to be forgotten that Bayle was as strongly Protestant.

DAVIS, ANDREW JACKSON(1826-1910), American spiritualist, was born at Blooming Grove, Orange county, New York, on the 11th of August 1826. He had little education, though probably much more than he and his friends pretended. In 1843 he heard lectures in Poughkeepsie on “animal magnetism,” as the phenomena of hypnotism was then termed, and found that he had remarkable clairvoyant powers; and in the following year he had, he said, spiritual messages telling him of his life work. For the next three years (1844-1847) he practised magnetic healing with much success; and in 1847 he publishedThe Principles of Nature,Her Divine Revelations, and aVoice toMankind, which in 1845 he had dictated while in a trance to his “scribe,” William Fishbough. He lectured with little success and returned to writing (or “dictating”) books, publishing about thirty in all, includingThe Great Harmonia(1850-1861), an “encyclopaedia” in six volumes;The Philosophy of Special Providences(1850), which with its evident rehash of old arguments against special providences and miracles would seem to show that Davis’s inspiration was literary;The Magic Staff: an Autobiography(1857), which was supplemented byArabula: or the Divine Guest, Containing a New Collection of New Gospels(1867), the gospels being those “according to” St Confucius, St John (G. Whittier), St Gabriel (Derzhavin), St Octavius (Frothingham), St Gerrit (Smith), St Emma (Hardinge), St Ralph (W. Emerson), St Seiden (J. Finney), St Theodore (Parker), &c.; andA Stellar Key to the Summer Land(1868) andViews of Our Heavenly Home(1878), each with illustrative diagrams. Davis was much influenced by Swedenborg and by the Shakers, who reprinted his panegyric of Ann Lee in an officialSketch of Shakers and Shakerism(1884).

DAVIS, CHARLES HOWARD(1857- ), American landscape painter, was born at East Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 2nd of February 1857. A pupil of the schools of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, he was sent to Paris in 1880. Having studied at the Academy Julian under Lefebvre and Boulanger, he went to Barbizon and painted much in the forest of Fontainebleau under the traditions of the “men of thirty.” He became a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1906, and received many awards, including a silver medal at the Paris Exhibition of 1889. He is represented by important works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington; the Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

DAVIS, CUSHMAN KELLOGG(1838-1900), American political leader and lawyer, was born in Henderson, New York, on the 16th of June 1838. He was taken by his parents to Wisconsin Territory in the year of his birth, and was educated at Carroll College, Waukesha, Wisconsin, and at the university of Michigan, from which he graduated in 1857. After studying law in the office of Alexander W. Randall, he was admitted to the bar in 1860. During the Civil War, as a first lieutenant of Federal volunteers, he served in the western campaigns of 1862 and 1863, and in 1864 was an aide to General Willis A. Gorman (1814-1876). Resigning his commission (1864) on account of ill-health, he soon settled in St Paul, Minnesota, where he practised law in partnership with General Gorman, and soon became prominent both at the bar and, as a Republican, in politics. He served in the state House of Representatives in 1867, 1868-1873 was United States district attorney for Minnesota. In 1874-1876 he was governor of the state, and from 1887 until his death was a member of the United States Senate. In the Senate he was one of the acknowledged leaders of his party, an able and frequent speaker and a committee worker of great industry. In March 1897 he became chairman of the committee on foreign relations at a time when its work was peculiarly influential in shaping American foreign policy. His extensive knowledge of international law, and his tact and diplomacy, enabled him to render services of the utmost importance in connexion with the Spanish-American War, and he was one of the peace commissioners who negotiated and signed the treaty of Paris by which the war was terminated. He died at St Paul on the 27th of November 1900. Few public men in the United States since the Civil War have combined skill in diplomacy, constructive statesmanship, talent for political organization, oratorical ability and broad culture to such a degree as Senator Davis. In addition to various speeches and public addresses, he published an essay entitledThe Law of Shakespeare(1899).

DAVIS, HENRY WILLIAM BANKS(1833- ), English painter, received his art training in the Royal Academy schools, where he was awarded two silver medals. He was elected an associate of the Academy in 1873, and academician in 1877. He made a considerable reputation as an accomplished painter of quiet pastoral subjects and carefully elaborated landscapes with cattle. His pictures, “Returning to the Fold” (1880), and “Approaching Night” (1899), bought for the Chantrey Fund Collection, are now in the National Gallery of British Art (Tate Gallery).

DAVIS, HENRY WINTER(1817-1865), American political leader, was born at Annapolis, Maryland, on the 16th of August 1817. His father, Rev Henry Lyon Davis (1775-1836), was a prominent Protestant Episcopal clergyman of Maryland, and for some years president of St John’s College at Annapolis. The son graduated at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, in 1837, and from the law department of the university of Virginia in 1841, and began the practice of law in Alexandria, Virginia, but in 1850 removed to Baltimore, Maryland, where he won a high position at the bar. Early becoming imbued with strong anti-slavery views, though by inheritance he was himself a slave holder, he began political life as a Whig, but when the Whig party disintegrated, he became an “American” or “Know-Nothing,” and as such served in the national House of Representatives from 1855 to 1861. By his independent course in Congress he won the respect and esteem of all political groups. In the contest over the speakership at the opening of the Thirty-Sixth Congress (1859) he voted with the Republicans, thereby incurring a vote of censure from the Maryland legislature, which called upon him to resign. In 1860, not being quite ready to ally himself wholly with the Republican party, he declined to be a candidate for the Republican nomination for the vice-presidency, and supported the Bell and Everett ticket. He was himself defeated in this year for re-election to Congress. In the winter of 1860-1861 he was active on behalf of compromise measures. Finally, after President Lincoln’s election, he became a Republican, and as such was re-elected in 1862 to the national House of Representatives, in which he at once became one of the most radical and aggressive members, his views commanding especial attention owing to his being one of the few representatives from a slave state. From December 1863 to March 1865 he was chairman of the committee on foreign affairs; as such, in 1864, he was unwilling to leave the delicate questions concerning the French occupation of Mexico entirely in the hands of the president and his secretary of state, and brought in a report very hostile to France, which was adopted in the House, but fortunately, as it proved later, was not adopted by the Senate. With other radical Republicans Davis was a bitter opponent of Lincoln’s plan for the reconstruction of the Southern States, and on the 15th of February 1864 he reported from committee a bill placing the process of reconstruction under the control of Congress, and stipulating that the Confederate States, before resuming their former status in the Union, must disfranchise all important civil and military officers of the Confederacy, abolish slavery, and repudiate all debts incurred by or with the sanction of the Confederate government. In his speech supporting this measure Davis declared that until Congress should “recognize a government established under its auspices, there is no government in the rebel states save the authority of Congress.” The bill—the first formal expression by Congress with regard to Reconstruction—did not pass both Houses until the closing hours of the session, and failed to receive the approval of the president, who on the 8th of July issued a proclamation defining his position. Soon afterwards, on the 5th of August 1864, Davis joined Benjamin F. Wade of Ohio, who had piloted the bill through the Senate, in issuing the so-called “Wade-Davis Manifesto,” which violently denounced President Lincoln for encroaching on the domain of Congress and insinuated that the presidential policy would leave slavery unimpaired in the reconstructed states. In a debate in Congress some months later he declared, “When I came into Congress ten years ago this was a government of law. I have lived to see it a government of personal will.” He was one of the radical leaders who preferred Frémont to Lincoln in 1864, but subsequently withdrew his opposition and supported the President for re-election. He early favoured the enlistment of negroes, and in July 1865 publicly advocated the extension of the suffrage to them. He was not a candidate for re-election to Congress in 1864, and died in Baltimore, Maryland, on the 30th of December 1865. Davis was a man of scholarly tastes, an orator of unusual ability andgreat eloquence, tireless and fearless in fighting political battles, but impulsive to the verge of rashness, impractical, tactless and autocratic. He wrote an elaborate political work entitledThe War of Ormuzd and Ahriman in theNineteenthCentury(1853), in which he combated the Southern contention that slavery was a divine institution.

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