needed as to the methods and results of the higher criticism. Being a master of its methods, but very cautious in accepting assertions about its results, he secured attention early in the Free Church for scientific criticism, and yet threw the whole weight of his learning and his caustic wit into the argument against critical extravagance. He had thought himself into the ideas and points of view of the Hebrews, and his work in Old Testament theology is unrivalled. He excels as an expositor of the governing Hebrew ideas such as holiness, righteousness, Spirit of God, Messianism. In 1897 he was chosen moderator of the general assembly, but his health prevented his accepting the post. He died, unmarried, on the 26th of January 1902.
Besides the commentary on Job he published a book on the Hebrew Accents, the only Scottish performance of the kind since the days of Thomas Boston. His Introductory Hebrew Grammar has been widely adopted as a class-book in theological colleges. His Hebrew Syntax has the same admirable clearness, precision and teaching quality. His Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews is one of a series of handbooks for Bible classes. These were followed by commentaries on Job, Ezekiel, Nahum, Habakkuk and Zephaniah, in the Cambridge series; and a Bible-class primer on The Exile and Restoration. His lectures on Old Testament Prophecy were published after his death by Professor J. A. Paterson. The Theology of the Old Testament in the “International Theological Library” is a posthumous volume edited by Professor Salmond. “Isaiah” in the Temple Bible was finished, but not revised, when he died; and he also had in hand the volume on Isaiah for the International Critical Commentary; to which must be added a mass of articles contributed to The Imperial Bible Dictionary, The Encyclopaedia Britannica, and the chief religious reviews. Various articles in Dr Hastings’ Bible Dictionary were by Davidson, especially the article “God.” Two volumes of sermons, The Called of God, and Waiting upon God, were published from MS. after Davidson’s death.
DAVIDSON, JOHN (1857–1909), British poet, playwright and novelist, son of the Rev. Alexander Davidson, a minister of the Evangelical Union, was born at Barrhead, Renfrewshire, Scotland, on the 11th of April 1857. After a schooling at the Highlanders’ Academy, Greenock, at the age of thirteen he was set to work in that town, by helping in a sugar factory laboratory and then in the town analyst’s office; and at fifteen he went back to his old school as a pupil-teacher. In 1876 he studied for a session at Edinburgh University, and then went as a master to various Scotch schools till 1890, varying his experiences in 1884 by being a clerk in a Glasgow thread firm. He had married in 1885, and meanwhile his literary inclinations had shown themselves, without attracting any public success, in the publication of 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 1890, but at first had a hard struggle. There his prose-romance Perfervid (1890) was published, one of the most original and fascinating stories of “young blood” and child adventure ever written, but for some reason it did not catch the public; and a sort of sequel in The Great Men (1891) met no better fate. He contributed, however, to newspapers and became known among literary journalists, and his volume of verse In a Music-Hall (1891) prepared the way for the genuine success two years later of his Fleet Street Eclogues (1893), which sounded a new and vigorous note and at once established his position among the younger generation of poets. He subsequently produced several more books in prose, romantic stories like Baptist Lake (1894) and Earl Lavender (1895), and an admirable piece of descriptive landscape writing in A Random Itinerary (1894); but his acceptance as a poet gave a more emphatic impulse to his work in verse, and most attention was given to the increasing proof of his powers shown in his Ballads and Songs (1894), Second Series of Fleet Street Eclogues (1895), New Ballads (1896), The Last Ballad, &c. (1898), all full of remarkably fresh and unconventional beauty. In spite of the strangely neglected genius of this early Perfervid, it is accordingly as a writer of verse rather than of prose-fiction that he occupies a leading place, with a decided character of his own, in recent English literature, his revival of a modernized ballad form being a considerable achievement in itself, and his poems being packed with fine thought, robust and masterful in expression and imagery. Meanwhile in 1896 he produced an English verse adaptation, in For the Crown (acted by Forbes Robertson and Mrs Patrick Campbell), of François Coppée’s drama Pour la couronne, which had considerable success and was revived in 1905; and he wrote several other literary plays, remarkable none the less for dramatic qualities,—Godfrida (1898), Self’s the Man (1901), The Knight of the Maypole (1902) and The Theatrocrat (1905), in the last of which a tendency to be extraordinary is rather too manifest. This tendency was not absent from his volume of Holiday and Other Poems (1906), containing many fine things, together with an “essay on blank verse” illustrated from his own compositions, the outspoken criticisms of a writer of admitted originality and insight, but not devoid of eccentric volubility. But if the identification of “eccentricity” and “greatness” by Cosmo Mortimer in Mr Davidson’s own Perfervid sometimes obtrudes itself on the memory in considering his more peculiarly “robust” and somewhat volcanic deliverances, no such objection can detract from the genuine inspiration of his best work, in which the true poetic afflatus is unmistakable. This is to be found in his poems published from 1893 to 1898, five years during which his reputation steadily and deservedly grew,—the Fleet Street Eclogues, with their passionate modern criticism of life combined with their breath of rural beauty, and such intense ballads as those “Of a Nun,” and “Of Heaven and Hell.” In his ethical and didactic utterances, The Testament of a Vivisector and The Testament of a Man Forbid (1901), The Testament of an Empire Builder (1902), Mammon and his Message (1908), &c., the fine quality of the verse is wedded with a certain fervid satirical journalism of subject, less admirable than the detachment of thought in the earlier volumes. 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 23rd, 1909, he disappeared, in circumstances pointing to suicide, and six months later his body was found in the sea.
See an article by Filson Young on “The New Poetry,” in the Fortnightly Review, January 1909.
DAVIDSON, RANDALL THOMAS (1848– ), archbishop of Canterbury, son of Henry Davidson, of Muirhouse, Edinburgh, was born in Edinburgh and educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Oxford. He took orders in 1874 and held a curacy at Dartford, in Kent, till 1877, when he became resident chaplain and private secretary to Dr Tait, archbishop of Canterbury, a position which he occupied till Dr Tait’s death, and retained for a short time (1882–1883) under his successor Dr Benson. He married in 1878 Edith, the second daughter of Archbishop Tait, whose Life he eventually wrote (1891). In 1882 he became honorary chaplain and sub-almoner to Queen Victoria, and in the following year was appointed dean of Windsor, and domestic chaplain to the queen. His advice upon state matters was constantly sought by the queen and greatly valued. From 1891 to 1903 he was clerk of the closet, first to Queen Victoria and afterwards to King Edward VII. He was made bishop of Rochester in 1891, and was translated to Winchester in 1895. In 1903 he succeeded Temple as archbishop of Canterbury. The new archbishop, without being one of the English divines who have made notable contributions to theological learning, already had a great reputation for ecclesiastical statesmanship; and in subsequent years his diplomatic abilities found ample scope in dealing not only with the difficulties caused in the church by doctrinal questions, but pre-eminently with the education crisis, and with the new problems arising in the enlarged Anglican Communion. As the chief representative of the Church of England in the House of Lords, his firmness, combined with broadmindedness, in regard to the attitude of the nonconformists towards denominational education, made his influence widely felt. In 1904 he visited Canada and the United States, and was present at the triennial general convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States and Canada. In 1908 he presided at the Pan-Anglican congress held in London, and at the Lambeth conference which followed. He had edited in 1889 The Lambeth Conferences, an historical account of the conferences of 1867, 1878 and 1888, giving the official reports and resolutions, and the sermons preached on these occasions.
