The son of a Wiltshire lawyer, Sir John Davies attended Queen's College Oxford (B.A. 1590), the University of Leiden (1592), and Padua (1597). He studied at the Middle Temple (1588-94) before being called to the bar in 1595. In 1597-98 Davies was disbarred for assaulting a fellow Templar. He was reinstated in 1601 and was later Attorney-General for Ireland (1606-19) and Speaker of the Irish Commons (1613). Davies returned to England in 1619 but died before he could take up his position as Lord Chief Justice. He co-founded the Society of Antiquaries with Sir Robert Cotton.
TEXT RECORDS:
1596Orchestra or a Poeme of Dauncing.
1599Nosce Teipsum.
PUBLICATIONS:
Orchestra: a poeme of dauncing. 1596.
Epigrammes and elegies by J. D. and C. M[arlow]. 1598.
Hymns of Astraea in acrosticke verse. 1599.
Nosce teipsum in two elegies: of humane knowledge, of the soule of man. 1599.
A discovery of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued. 1612.
Le primer report des cases resolves. 1615.
A perfect abridgement of the eleven books of reports [Sir Edward Coke, ed. Sir John Davies]. 1655.
The question concerning impositions, tonnage, poundage, prizage, customs, etc. 1656.
Works. 1773.
Historical tracts, ed. George Chalmers. 1786.
Works, ed. A. B. Grosart. 3 vols, 1869-76.
Poems, ed. Clare Howard. 1941.
Poems of Sir John Davies, ed. Robert Krueger. 1975.
PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:
English
Irish
Anglican
Winchester College
Queen's College Oxford
Bachelor of Arts
Middle Temple
Inns of Court
Member of Parliament
courtier
lawyer
antiquary
poet
Robert Cotton
Rev. John Donne
John Hoskyns
Henry Wotton
REFERENCE:
DNB; NCBEL.
Bodenham, Bel-vedere (1600); Poetical Rhapsody (1602, 1621); Edward Phillips, Theatrum Poetarum (1675); William Winstanley, Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687); Giles Jacob, An Historical Account of ... English Poets (1720); Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (1690-91; 1721); Giles Jacob, An Historical Account of ... English Poets (1720); John Wesley, Moral and Sacred Poems (1744); Biographia Britannica (1747-66); Cibber-Shiels, Lives of the Poets (1753) 167-70; James Granger, Biographical History (1769; 1824) [portrait]; Thomas Warton, History of English Poetry (1774-81); John Nichols, Select Collection of Poems (1780-82); Henry Headley, Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry (1787); "Sir John Davies" in Town and Country Magazine 20 (August 1788) 347-48 [from Headley]; Life by George Chalmers in Tracts (1786); George Ellis, Specimens of Early English Poetry (1790; 1801); Robert Anderson, British Poets (1795); Samuel Egerton Brydges, Theatrum Poetarum Anglicanorum (1800); Joseph Ritson, Bibliographia Poetica (1802) 181-83; "Sir John Davies" Monthly Magazine 25 (March 1808) 148; Alexander Chalmers, English Poets (1810); Alexander Chalmers, General Biographical Dictionary (1812-17); Bliss, Athenae Oxonienses (1815) 2:400-05; Nathan Drake, in Shakespeare and his Times (1817; 1838); Thomas Campbell, Specimens of the British Poets (1819); Ezekiel Sanford, British Poets (1819); Retrospective Review 5 (1822) 44-56; Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); Robert Southey, British Poets, Chaucer to Jonson (1831); Robert Aris Willmott, Lives of Sacred Poets (1834); Richard Cattermole, Sacred Poetry of the Seventeenth Century (1836)Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Edward Farr, Select Poetry chiefly devotional of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth (1845); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); Thomas Corser, Collectanea Anglo-Poetica 5 (1873) 104-10; Alfred Webb, Compendium of Irish Biography (1878); The English Poets, ed. Thomas Humphry Ward (1880); Foster, Alumni Oxon (1887-91); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); Lewis, OHEL (1954); Robert Krueger, Poems (1976); Jeanie R. Brink, "The Masque of the Nine Muses: Sir John Davies' unpublished Epithalamion and the Belphoebe-Ruby Episode in The Faerie Queene" RES 23 (1972) 445-47; Jeanie R. Brink, "Sir John Davies's Orchestra: Political Symbolism and Textual Revisions" Durham University Journal 72 (NS 41) (1979-80) 195-210; Mark Eccles, "Brief Lives" Studies in Philology 79 (1982); Saunders, Renaissance Poets (1983); Spenser Encyclopedia, "Davies" (1990) 210; Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Database (1995).
COMMENTARY RECORDS
for Sir John Davies:
BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for Sir John Davies:
AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)
1. | 1595 George Chapman: Sir John Davies, "To the Author" Chapman, Ovids Banquet of Sence (1595) sig. A3v. |