Sir John Davies
Epes Sargent, in Harper's Cyclopaedia of British and American Poetry (1882) 46.
Davies (1570-1626), an English barrister, was the author of Nosce Teipsum (Know Thyself), a poem on the immortality of the soul. It bears the date of 1602, when Davies was about thirty-two years old. It was printed five times during his life. In 1598 Davies was ejected from membership in the Society of the Middle Temple, for having thrashed a man within the sacred precincts of that Inn of Court. But he was an able lawyer; and having won the favor of King James, he rose from one legal distinction to another, and was knighted in 1607.