DAVIES, SIR JOHN 0569-1626), English poet, was bap tized on April 16,1569, at Tisbury, Wiltshire. He was educated at Winchester college, and became a commoner of Queen's college, Oxford, in 1585. In 1588 he entered the Middle Temple,' and was called to the bar in 1595. In his general onslaught on literature in 1599 the archbishop of Canterbury ordered to be burnt his volume, All Ovid's Elegies, 3 Bookes, by C. M. Epigrams, by J. D. (Middleburgh, 1598?), which contained posthumous work by Marlowe. The epigrams were probably earlier in date of com position than the charming fragment entitled Orchestra (1596), written in praise of dancing, and dedicated to the author's "very friend, Master Richard Martin," but in the next year the friends quarrelled, and Davies was expelled from the society for having struck Martin with a cudgel in the hall of the Middle Temple. He spent the year after his expulsion at Oxford in the composition of his philosophical poem on the nature of the soul and its immor tality—Nosce teipsum (1599). Its force, eloquence and ingenuity, the orderly and lucid arrangement of its matter, place it among the finest of English philosophical poems. In '599 Davies pub lished a volume of 26 acrostics on the words Elisabetha Regina, entitled Hymns to Astraea. He produced no more poetry except two dialogues contributed to Francis Davison's Poetical Rhapsody (16o8). In 16or Davies was restored to his position at the bar, after making his apologies to Martin, and in the same year he sat for Corfe Castle in parliament. James I. received the author of Nosce teipsum with great favour, and sent him 0603) to Ireland as solicitor-general; he was knighted in the same year. In 16o6 he was promoted to be attorney-general for Ireland, and created serjeant-at-arms. One of his chief aims was to establish the Protestant religion firmly in Ireland, and he took an active part in the "plantation" of Ulster. In 1612 he published his prose Discoverie of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely sub dued untill the beginning of his Majestie's happie raigne (ed. H. Morley in his Ireland under Elizabeth and James I. [i890]). In the same year he entered the Irish parliament as member for Fermanagh, and was elected speaker after a scene of disorder in which the Catholic nominee, Sir John Everard, who had been installed, was forcibly ejected. In the capacity of speaker he delivered an excellent address reviewing previous Irish parlia ments. He resigned his Irish offices in 1619, and sat in the English parliament of 1621 for Newcastle-under-Lyme. With Sir Robert Cotton he was one of the founders of the Society of Antiquaries. He was appointed lord chief justice in 1626, but died suddenly before he could enter on the office. He had married 0609) Eleanor Touchet, daughter of George, Baron Audley. She de veloped eccentricity verging on madness, and wrote several fa natical books on prophecy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-In 1615 Davies published at Dublin Le Primer Bibliography.-In 1615 Davies published at Dublin Le Primer Discours des Cases et Matters in Ley resolues et adjudges en les Courts del Roy en cest Realme (reprinted 1628). He issued an edition of his poems in 1622. His prose publications were mainly posthumous. The Question concerning Impositions, Tonnage, Poundage . . . was printed in 1656, and four of the tracts relating to Ireland, with an account of Davies and his services to that country, were edited by G. Chalmers in 1786. His works were edited by Dr. A. B. Grosart 0869-76), with a full biography, for the Fuller Worthies Library ; also by H. Morley for the "Carisbrooke Library" (vol. x. 1889). Nosce teipsum is printed in Arber's English Garner (vol. v. 1882).