Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/183

 Review,’ and (until 1884) for the ‘Graphic.’ It was chiefly by Davison's advice that the popular concerts at St. James's Hall, instead of being, as at first, miscellaneous performances, have become the admirable institution of the last twenty years. He continued to contribute the analytical remarks to the programme books of these concerts until his death.

In 1860 he married Miss Arabella Goddard, the pianist, upon whose style his advice is understood to have had considerable influence. During the latter years of his life he suffered much from ill-health. He left London and went to Malvern, and afterwards to Margate. He died at the York Hotel in the latter town 24 March 1885, and was buried at Brompton four days later.

For many years Davison wielded almost despotic sway as a critic. The obituary notices of him contributed to the press by his friends are singularly laudatory in character. He was not a highly educated or cultured writer, though he was possessed of an extraordinary memory and a large store of miscellaneous knowledge. His style was terse and energetic, and he was never tired of inveighing against those members of his profession who thought that musical criticism should be couched in incomprehensible English. As a critic he will be remembered by his unswerving attachment to Bennett and Mendelssohn; indeed the position which the latter holds in popular taste in this country may be largely attributed to Davison's advocacy. He was also, somewhat strangely, one of the first to recognise the merits of Berlioz, but on the other hand he attacked Schumann's music with persistent bitterness, and possessed so little insight as to class him with Wagner as a would-be innovator. An article which he wrote after the first performance in England of Schumann's ‘Paradise and the Peri’ is perhaps one of the most memorable pieces of wrong judgment extant. It begins: ‘Robert Schumann has had his innings, and been bowled out—like Richard Wagner. Paradise and the Peri has gone to the tomb of the Lohengrins.’ It is small wonder that latterly Davison fell out of touch with the age. Personally he was popular among his friends, and a genial and amusing companion. As one who knew him well has said of him, ‘he committed faults of judgment, none of feeling.’

[Obituary notices (Times, 26 March 1885, Athenæum and Academy, 28 March 1885); private information.] 

DAVISON, JEREMIAH (1695?–1750?), portrait-painter, was born in England of Scottish parentage about 1695. He studied chiefly the works of Sir Peter Lely, and under the guidance of Joseph van Aken he acquired considerable dexterity in imitating the texture of satin. Having at the meetings of a masonic lodge become acquainted with James, second duke of Athole, he painted his portrait and presented it to the lodge. Subsequently he painted another portrait of the duke, together with that of the duchess, and under their patronage went to Scotland. He worked in Edinburgh, and there, as well as in London, gained a large practice as a portrait-painter, but his works are considered weak both in drawing and colour. In 1730 he painted the portrait of Frederick, prince of Wales. Walpole states that he died towards the close of 1745, aged about fifty; but there is in the possession of the Earl of Morton at Dalmahoy a group representing James, fifteenth earl of Morton, and his family, signed ‘J. Davison, 1750.’ At Greenwich Hospital is a full-length portrait by him of Admiral Byng, first viscount Torrington; in the National Gallery of Scotland is a head of Richard Cooper (d. 1764) [q. v.]; and in the Merchants' Hall, Edinburgh, is a half-length of Elizabeth Macdonald of Largie, wife of Charles Lockhart of Lee and Carnwath. A portrait of Mrs. Clive, the actress, was in Horace Walpole's collection at Strawberry Hill. The younger John Faber engraved Davison's portraits of Frederick, prince of Wales; James, duke of Athole; George, viscount Torrington; and Duncan Forbes, lord president of the court of session. The statue of the last-named in the Parliament House at Edinburgh was modelled by Roubiliac from the portrait by Davison.

[Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Wornum, 1849, ii. 702; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists of the English School, 1878; Cat. of the National Gallery of Scotland, 1883.] 

DAVISON, JOHN (1777–1834), theological writer, was born in 1777 at Morpeth, where his father was a schoolmaster, but brought up at Durham, to which city his father had removed soon after his birth. He was educated at the cathedral school, and in 1794 proceeded thence to Christ Church, Oxford, where he obtained a Craven scholarship in 1796, and was elected fellow of Oriel in 1800. In 1810 he became one of the tutors of Oriel, and in 1817 was presented by Lord Liverpool to the vicarage of Sutterton, near Boston in Lincolnshire. His subsequent preferment was to the rectory of Washington, Durham, in 1818, and in 1826 to that of Upton-upon-Severn. For a few years he