troubles that were approaching, and died on the 20th of April, 1641, his last publication being a characteristic appeal for unity—"Ad Pacem Ecclesiæ Adhortatio." His chief theological performance is his "Exposition of St. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians," originally published in Latin, and consisting of lectures delivered as Lady Margaret's professor. An English translation of it was published in 1831, with a useful memoir of the author, by the Rev. Josiah Allport of Birmingham. Quaint Thomas Fuller was the son of Bishop Davenant's sister, and has given his uncle a niche among his Worthies.—F. E.
DAVENANT, William, born at Oxford in 1605, and died in 1668; educated at the grammar-school of All-Saints. In 1621 his father, who kept the Crown Tavern at Oxford, served the office of mayor, and in the same year William entered Lincoln college. We next meet him as page to Frances, duchess of Richmond, and afterwards in the service of Fulke Greville Lord Brooke. Lord Brooke's death drove him to the stage for support. His first play was "Albovine, King of the Lombards." In 1638 he was appointed poet-laureate, and in 1639 obtained the patent of the Cockpit theatre. In the civil commotions the players were all royalists, and objects of suspicion to the parliamentarians. Davenant was imprisoned—bailed—sought to fly—was caught at last—made his escape, and remained abroad for some time. He returned to England, and made himself so serviceable to the royal cause at the siege of Gloucester, that he was knighted. In 1646 he joined the queen in France, and became a Romanist. While in Paris, Davenant wrote the two first books of "Gondibert." He now thought of going to Virginia, and embarked from one of the ports of Normandy with a number of French artificers, whom he wished to introduce into the colony. His vessel was captured. He was imprisoned, and found time to continue his poem, which was destined never to be concluded. In 1650 he was ordered to be tried by a high commission court, but contrived to escape this desperate hazard, it is said, by the interposition of Milton. On his liberation he thought of the theatre as a means of support. It would not do to act tragedies or comedies at a time when the protectoral court and the law itself were arrayed against such exhibitions. He gave what he called "entertainments"—fragments of tragedy, comedy, and farce; everything except actual plays constituted the farrago which he provided for his customers. On the Restoration he obtained the patent of the "duke's company," and was then unrestricted in what he produced. He died in his sixty-third year, and was buried in Westminster abbey. On his gravestone is Inscribed—"Oh, rare Sir William Davenant." We do not know whether any belief was ever given to a joke of the day, which assumed that Davenant was the son of Shakspeare, who occasionally lodged at the Crown Tavern, Oxford; a report which Davenant is said to have thought it honourable to himself, his mother, and the great poet, whom he resembled in nothing, to countenance, by repeating a foolish jest with unbecoming levity.—J. A., D.
DAVENPORT, Christopher, a stirring Franciscan propagandist of the seventeenth century, was born at Coventry in 1598, and finished his education at Merton college, Oxford. Converted to the Roman catholic religion, and entering the order of St. Francis, he became, after many changes of place, chaplain to Queen Henrietta Maria, and one of the pillars of the Romish cause in England. The conciliatory spirit which in his writings he displayed towards the English church procured him the reprobation of many of his more ardent coreligionists on the continent. At the Restoration he was appointed chaplain to Catherine of Braganza, and he was thrice chosen provincial master of his order in England. In the course of his adventurous life he assumed several aliases; but as an author he is known by his monastic designation of Franciscus à Sancta Clara. He died at Somerset House on the 31st of May, 1680. Anthony Wood describes him as a man of frank and agreeable manners and conversation.—F. E.
DAVENPORT, John, a puritan divine, born at Coventry in 1597, is chronicled by Anthony Wood as a brother of Christopher Davenport the Franciscan—a statement rather sharply denied by his New England biographer, Cotton Mather (in the Magnalia), who speaks of him as merely "a near kinsman" of his namesake. John was an alumnus of Merton and Magdalene colleges, Oxford, and becoming a puritan, was appointed minister of St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, London. Eventually, in 1637, he emigrated to New England, and was minister at Newhaven, whence, being held in great estimation in the colony, he removed in 1667 to be minister at Boston. He died there on the 15th of March, 1670. There is an American tradition that, after the Restoration, he concealed for a time in his house at Newhaven the proscribed regicides Whalley and Goffe.—F. E.
DAVENPORT, Richard Alfred, an industrious man of letters, born about 1780, contributed to the Annual Register, continued Mitford's History of Greece, wrote the notices and prefaces to Whittingham's edition of the British Poets in the Family Library, the lives of "Ali Pacha," "Peter the Great," and "Eminent Men;" was also the author of a "Dictionary of Biography," and edited more than a hundred volumes of miscellaneous works. He terminated his life on the 25th of July, 1852, under peculiar circumstances, being found dying by a policeman who heard his moans from the street. On entering his house—a small freehold in Camberwell—the coroner and jury found it full of books, papers, coins, and curiosities, covered with thick layers of dust; it not having been cleaned for eleven years. The windows were broken, and the furniture in great decay. Bottles containing laudanum were found lying about, and the verdict returned was that the deceased had died from inadvertently taking an overdose of laudanum.—F. E.
DAVID, Saint, the patron of Wales, is supposed to have been born about the close of the fifth century, and to have been the son of a prince of Ceretica, the modern Cardiganshire. After an early residence in the Isle of Wight, he preached the gospel to the Britons, founded many monasteries, and died archbishop of Wales, about 544 according to some, towards the close of the sixth century according to others. His "rule" was distinguished by the stress which he laid on daily manual labour on the part of the monks. In the calendars this saint's day falls on the 1st of March.—F. E.
DAVID I., one of the best of the Scottish kings, was the youngest son of Malcolm Canmore and Margaret, the sister of Edgar Atheling, heir to the Saxon line of English monarchs. It is probable that he was born shortly before his father's death in 1093. He spent his youth at the court of Henry I., who had married his sister, and there "his manners," says an English chronicler, "were polished from the rust of Scottish barbarity." On the death of his brother, Alexander I., he ascended the Scottish throne, and discharged the duties of his office with great assiduity. The usurpation of Stephen, to the exclusion of Maud, David's niece, induced the Scottish monarch to make repeated inroads into England in support of her cause. But in one of these he was encountered near Northallerton, 22nd August, 1138, by a powerful army, collected chiefly by Thurstan, archbishop of York, and defeated in the famous "battle of the Standard," with the loss of ten thousand men. Peace was soon after concluded between the rival kings on 9th April, 1139, and the earldom of Northumberland was ceded to Prince Henry, David's eldest son. In 1141 the cause of Maud was for a short time triumphant, and David repaired to her court to assist her with his counsel; but she was soon compelled to flee from the capital, accompanied by her uncle. From this period David seems to have given his almost exclusive attention to the affairs of his own kingdom. The closing years of his reign were peaceful and prosperous. He applied himself assiduously to the encouragement of agriculture and of manufactures, the establishment of towns, the erection of churches, monasteries, and other public buildings, and the enactment of judicious and equitable laws. His remarkable liberality to the church, and his erection of numerous religious houses throughout the country, have been severely censured in later times, and drew forth the pithy remark of James I., that David "was ane sore sanct for the croun." David was remarkable for his affability to all classes of his subjects; his apartments were always open to suitors on certain days of the week; and he sat at the gate of his palace for the purpose of hearing and deciding the causes brought before him by the poor. His custom was to commence business at daybreak, and at sunset he dismissed his attendants and retired for solitary meditation. He greatly promoted the civilization of his kingdom by inviting numbers of Saxon, Norman, and Flemish settlers to his court, and bestowing on them munificent grants of land. The ancestors of the Bruces, Baliols, and many other distinguished Scotch families, all settled in Scotland at this period. David died at Carlisle on 24th May, 1153. In striking and beautiful consistency with his life, he was found dead in an attitude of devotion.—J. T.
