DAVIDSON, JOHN British poet, playwright and novelist, son of the Rev. Alexander Davidson, a minister of the Evangelical Union, was born at Barrhead, Renfrewshire, Scot land, on April II, 1857. In 1876 he studied for a session at Edin burgh university, and then went as a master to various Scottish schools till 189o, varying his experiences in 1884 by being a clerk in a Glasgow thread firm. He had married in 1885, and mean while he had published his poetical and fantastic plays, Bruce (1886), Smith; a tragic farce (1888) and Scaramouch in Naxos (1889). Determining at all costs to follow his literary vocation, he went to London in 189o. Fleet Street Eclogues (1893) at once established Davidson's position among the younger generation of British poets. He produced other books in prose, but his most important work is found in his Ballads and Songs Second Series of Fleet Street Eclogues (1895), New Ballads (1896), The Last Ballad, etc. (1898), all full of remarkably fresh and unconventional beauty. Meanwhile, in 1896, he pro duced an English verse adaptation in For the Crown (acted by Forbes Robertson and Mrs. Patrick Campbell), of Francois Coppee's drama Pour la couronne, and he wrote several other lit erary plays. In later years he lived at Penzance, provided with a small Civil List pension, but otherwise badly off, for his writings brought in very little money. On March 23, 1909, he disappeared, in circumstances pointing to suicide, and six months later his body was found in the sea.