Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/173

 the Philological School in the Marylebone Road; became a writer for the local journal, the ‘West Middlesex Advertiser,’ to which he contributed a series of articles on ‘Our Local Associations;’ and prepared for the press ‘Memorials of the Hamlet of Knightsbridge, with Notices of its immediate Neighbourhood.’ This was published in 1859, two years after his death, by his brother, C. Davis. Two other works by Davis were left in manuscript unfinished, namely ‘Pimlico’ and ‘Recollections of Piccadilly.’ He bequeathed his collections to the London and Middlesex Archæological Society. Many antiquarian papers written by him will be found in ‘Notes and Queries.’ He suffered all his life from chronic pleurisy, caused by the carelessness of his nurse in his infancy, and died on 30 Dec. 1857.



DAVID, JAMES (d. 1755), satirical writer, a Welshman, was a member of Jesus College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. on 13 Oct. 1726, M.A. on 9 July 1729. Turning his attention to medicine, he proceeded M.B. on 7 Dec. 1732. He practised as a physician at Devizes, Wiltshire, and died on 13 July 1755 (Gent. Mag. xxv. 333). The year before his death he published anonymously ‘Origines Divisianæ; or the Antiquities of the Devizes: In some familiar Letters to a Friend wrote in the years 1750 and 1751,’ 8vo, London, 1754, a well-written jeu d'esprit aimed at the absurd etymologies of Musgrave, Stukeley, Wise, Baxter, and Willis. It was reprinted as the work of ‘Dr. Davies’ in vol. ii. of ‘The Repository,’ 12mo, London, 1777–83. Owing to a misstatement by George Hardinge the piece has been wrongly ascribed to Dr. Sneyd Davies (, Lit. Illustr. i. 682). The doctor's jokes deceived the author of ‘Chronicles of the Devizes,’ who has reproduced some of the choicest as hard facts in what professes to be a grave biography of Davis. Among the Additional MSS. in the British Museum are three of Davis's letters to Professor John Ward, but wholly upon antiquarian subjects.



DAVIS, JOHN (1550?-1600), of Sandridge, navigator. [See .]

DAVIS, JOHN (d. 1622), navigator, made several voyages to the East Indies as pilot and master. His name first appears in the company's court minutes, 1 April 1609, as having gone out pilot and come home master of the Ascension, and then going pilot of the Expedition, ‘notwithstanding some matter of misgovernment and misdemeanour objected against him.’ He had presented to the governor and company a journal ‘of all the courses, occurrences, and occasions of and in the last voyage.’ In 1614–15 he commanded the James, in which capacity his conduct gave rise to many charges of negligence, ill-government, and drunkenness. They were probably exaggerated, but not altogether without foundation, for he was not employed again as commander. In 1617 he was master of the Swan [see ], and was made prisoner by the Dutch at Pularoon, but was released and sent home. On his return in 1618, he wrote ‘A Ruter or Briefe Direction for Readie Sailings into the East India, digested into a plaine method by Master John Davis of Limehouse, upon experience of his five voyages thither and home againe.’ This ruttier is published in ‘Purchas his Pilgrimes,’ part i. p. 444. Davis was afterwards gunner of the Lesser James, and died at Batavia in March 1622.



DAVIS, J. P. (called ) (1784–1862), painter, was a friend of Haydon, and a persistent enemy of the Royal Academy. Like his unfortunate friend, he got the worst of the fight in his struggles with the Royal Academy. He first exhibited with that body in 1811. Then, and for ten years following, his contributions consisted of portraits in oil. In 1824 he went to Rome. There he painted a large picture of the ‘Talbot family receiving the Benediction of the Pope’ (hence his cognomen, ‘Pope’ Davis). The year following he was awarded a premium of 50l. by the directors of the British Institution. In 1826, after his return to London, he exhibited at the Academy ‘Canova crowned by the Genius of Sculpture.’ Thenceforward until 1843 he was an occasional exhibitor. Mr. Algernon Graves (Dict. of Artists) states that he continued exhibiting until 1875; but as he most certainly died in 1862, this seems to require explanation. He was a vigorous and not a bad writer. In 1843 he published ‘Facts of vital importance relative to the Em-