Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/880

844 department of rabbinical literature. The most important is the Corona Sacerdotum (Hamburg, 1667), a Talmudic and rabbinical dictionary, which was printed only as far as the letter Tod, though the author carried on the work to the letter Resh after forty years labour. A small portion of the dictionary was printed at Amsterdam in 1648 as a specimen, with the title Civitas David.  DAVIDISTS, a name borne by two distinct sects in the history of the Christian church. 1. It is sometimes applied to the followers of David of Dinant, whose work entitled Quaternarii was condemned at the Synod of Paris in 1209. The works of Amalric of Bena were condemned at the same synod, but this is scarcely a sufficient ground for classing David of Dinant among his followers. Our information as to the views of the latter is derived from the Summa of Albertus Magnus and the Svmma of Thomas Aquinas. He founded upon the Platonists and the Arabian philosophers his fundamental doctrine that the Deity alone has any real existence, being the mater ia prima of all things. 2. The name Davidists, or David-Georgians, is more commonly applied to the followers of David George, or Joris, who was born at Delft in 1501. In 1530 he was punished by whipping, the boring of his tongue, and imprisonment for obstructing a Catholic procession in his native town. In 1534 he joined the Anabaptists, but soon afterwards he founded a sect of his own. In 1542 he published his Book of Wonders, containing an account of visions and revelations he professed to have had. Two years later he settled down as a merchant at Basel, where he lived in prosperity for twelve years under the assumed name of Johann von Brugge. After his death his son-in- law, offended probably at the disposition he made of his property, instituted a process of heresy against him ; and his body was exhumed and burnt by order of the senate of Basel. The Davidists, under the leadership of Henry Nicolas, afterwards became known in Holland and England as the Familists. They interpreted the whole of Scripture allegorically, arid maintained that as Moses had taught hope, and Christ had taught faith, it was their mission to teach love. The service of love was the highest and best of the dispensations. The result was an extreme Anti- nomianism in practice, which attracted the notice of the civil authorities in both countries. The sect was suppressed or absorbed in other sects early in the 17th century.  DAVIES, (1569-1626), philosophical poet of the age of Elizabeth, was baptized on the 16th of April 1569, at Tisbury, in Wiltshire, where his parents lived in the manor-house of Chicksgrove. He was sent first to Win chester College, and afterwards to New College, Oxford. In 1585 he became a commoner of Queen s College, Oxford, and in 1587 entered at the Middle Temple. Bereft of both his parents at a very early age, he seems to have plunged into all the dissipations that London could offer in those days to a rich young man of fashion. It is amusing to find the future attorney-general of Ireland, and grave Christian poet, connected, beyond all concealment, with one of the worst literary scandals of the period. One would be very glad to know what circumstances led to the publication of the notorious and now excessively rare little volume that bears the title All Ovid s Elegies, 3 Bookes, by C. M. Epigrams by J. D. At Middleburgh, in which Marlowe had a share, and which was condemned by the archbishop to be burned. The Epigrams are far from edifying or promising, and we may, in the absence of a date, be permitted to put the earliest possible, 1592 or 1593, on their unseemly boisterousness. In 1593 was ready for the printer, though not, it would seern, published till 1596, a far more worthy work, the charming and singular fragment called Orchestra, a little epic written in praise of dancing, in fifteen consecutive days. The poet seeks to prove that every harmonious movement of nature, every action of the elements, every motion in the firmament, is a conscious and well-ordered dance ; also that plants in growing, men in all their familiar and noble exercises, the angels themselves, and all the mysterious translunary world effect a solemn dancing in their motion. Orchestra was dedicated to the author s &quot; very friend,&quot; Master Richard Martin, a riotous youth whom, in the winter of 1597, Davies, the friends having quarrelled, attacked with a cudgel in the hall of the Middle Temple. For this offence he was expelled and degraded. Rusticating at Oxford, he spent the first year after his expulsion in the composition of his great philosophical poem, Nosce Teipsum^ which appeared in 1599. It is on this work that his fame mainly rests. The style was entirely novel in that age ; and its force, eloquence, and ingenuity, no less than the modern and polished tone of the periods, made it at once extremely popular. It was to its own age all that Pope s Essay on Man was to the Georgian period. In the same year, 1599, there saw the light a little book of exquisite lyrics from the same hand, Hymns to Astrcea, twenty-six acrostics on the words Elisabetha Regina, which all warble with the most delightful sweetness. In 1601 Davies was restored to his position at the bar, without loss of seniority. About the same time he sat in Elizabeth s last Parliament, as member for Corfe Castle. At Elizabeth s death he was instantly received with great favour by James I., and sent to Ireland as solicitor-general in 1603. On December 18 of that year he was knighted at Dublin. From this time forth he abandoned poetry in favour of the most active statesman ship. His activities in Ireland were almost ubiquitous. In 1606 he was further promoted to be attorney-general for Ireland, and created sergeant-at-arms. In the disordered condition of the country he was required to be stirring at all times, and his abilities seem to have been as conspicuous as his trustworthiness and uprightness. He married Eleanor, daughter of the earl of Castlehaven, but she unfortunately became insane. In 1612 Davies published his valuable prose work, A Discourse of the True Reasons why Ireland has never been entirely subdued. The same year he repre sented the county of Fermanagh in the Irish Parliament, and was elected speaker. In 1614 he represented New- castle-under-Lyne in the English Parliament, and in 1619 he threw up his appointments in Ireland. In 1622 he issued a collected edition of his poetical works. In 1626 Davies was appointed lord chief justice of England, but ere he could enter on the office, he was found dead in his bed (December 8), the victim, it was supposed, of apoplexy.

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Sir John Davies is not to be confounded with of Hereford, a contemporary author of a great quantity of verse, of which The Holy Roods (1609), The Scourge of Folly (1611), and The Muses Sacrifice (1612) are fair typical examples. Gifted with extraordinary volubility and self-confidence, but with no delicacy or taste the writ ings of this John Davies have survived more by reason of their bulk and their accidental interest of reference or dedication than from any intrinsic merit.  DAVILA, (1576-1631), historian, was descended from a Spanish noble family. His im mediate ancestors had been constables of the kingdom of Cyprus for the Venetian republic, from father to son, since 1464. But in 1570 the island was taken by the Turks ; and Antunio 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, where, in 1576. his youngest son was born, whom he named 