D'AVENANT, WILLIAM. 



DAVID. 



C18 





of an operatic character, like most of his father's productions in the 

 same line, and of very little merit : as indeed Dryden intimates, with 

 Blight disguise, in his prologue. D'Aveuant however did not pursue 

 poetry, but applied himself to the study of the civil law ; and he was 

 some years alter this made a Doctor of Luws by the University of 

 Cambridge. Of l<i public employment-, the first that is recorded ia 

 his api ointment in 1683 as one of tlie six cominis.-ioners to whom the 

 superintendence of the Excise was delegated at this time, on that part 

 of the revenue which had for many years bem let out to farm, coming 

 again into the hands of the crown. In 1685 he was appointed 

 Inspector of Plays, conjointly with the Master of the Revels; and that 

 year also he was returned to parliament as one of the members for 

 St. Ives. He was afterwards returned for Bedwin in 1698, and again 

 in 1700; and on the 3rd of June, 1703, he was appointed Inspector- 

 general of Exports and Imports, being the second person who had 

 held that office, the first having been William Culliford, originally a 

 custom-house officer in Ireland, who was appointed in 1696, and was 

 now raised to be a commissioner of the customs. This office D'Avcnant 

 retained till hia death, 14th November 1714. 



D'Avenant's publications on commerce, finance, and politics range 

 over a period of about eighteen years. We will enumerate the more 

 able of them. ' An Essay upon Ways and Means of Supplying 

 the War,' 1695. This tract immediately gained him considerable 

 reputation for an acquaintance with the subject of the public finances; 

 and for t-ome year* all bis sub*' quent publications which be acknow- 

 ledged were designated on the title-page as being by the author of the 

 'Essay on Wayn and Means;' but he is believed to have been the 

 author of several pieces upon which no such intimation appears. 

 ' Discourses on the Public Revenues, and of the Trade of England,' 

 Part I. 1698; and Part II. containing the Discourses 'which more 

 immediately treat of the Foreign Trade of this Kingdom,' also 1698. 

 To the first part is annexed a translation of Xenophon's ' Discourse on 

 the Revenue of Athens," by Walter Moyle, which is also printed in 

 Moyle's collected works. The subjects discussed in the 'Discourses' 

 are the use of political arithmetic, credit and the means of restoring 

 it, the management of the king's revenues, the public debts, the 

 general nature of foreign trade, the best way of protecting it, the 

 plantation trade, and the trade with the East Indies. A reply was 

 made to some things in the first part of this work, in ' Remarks upon 

 some wrong computations and conclusions contained in a late tract 

 entitled Discourses, Ac. ; in a letter to Mr. D. S.' 1698. ' A Discourse 

 upon Grants and Resumptions,' 1700. This was written to recommend 

 that certain late grants of crown lands, &c., should be resumed ; and 

 it was answered the following year in an elaborate treatise entitled 

 'Jug Regium; or, the King's right to grant forfeitures, and other 

 revenues of the crown, fully set forth,' Ac. ' Essay upon the Balance 

 of Power; the Kight of Making War, Peace, and Alliances; Universal 

 Monarchy,' 1701. This was another attack upon the government of 

 King William, and was answered the same year in 'Animadversions on 

 a late factious book entitled Essays,' Ac. It was also formally censured 

 by the Upper House of Convocation for a passage in which the author 

 had declared that he could point out several persons whom nothing 

 had recommended to places of the highest trust, and often to rich 

 benefices and dignities, but the open enmity which they had, almost 

 from their cradles, professed to the divinity of Christ. ' Essays upon 

 Peace at home and War abroad,' in two Parts, 1704. To this piece he 

 put his name ; and, being now in office, he of course supports the 

 existing government. He still however attached himself to the Tory 

 party ; and in 1710, in a work extending to two 8vo volumes, entitled 

 ' New Dialogues upon the Present Posture of Affairs, by the author of 

 the Essay on Ways and Means,' he renewed an attack upon their oppo- 

 nents, which he is believed to have commenced many years before in 

 an anonymous publication which appeared, in two successive parts, ill 

 1701 and 1702, under the title of 'The True Picture of a Modern 

 Whig." His last performances were ' Reflections upon the Consti- 

 tution and Management of the Trade to Africa' (anonymous), in three 

 parts, fol. 1709; and two 'Reports to the Commissioners for putting 

 in execution the Act for examining the Public Accounts of th 

 Kingdom,' 8vo, 1712. A selection of the political and commercial 

 works of Dr. D'Avenant was published in 1771, in 5 vols. 8vo, by Sir 

 Charles Whitworth, M.P., afterwards Earl Whitwortb. 



D'Avenant's writings are generally of some value for the informa- 

 tion contained in them, and on some points he saw rather farther 

 than the generality of bis contemporaries; but he is a heavy writer, 

 and was evidently (notwithstanding his poetical descent) a dull man, 

 and a* such (though the common notion was different) he was by no 

 means a pen-on to be trusted even in the handling and statement of 

 facts. His notions upon the principles of trade and political economy 

 also were very imperfectly systematise^, and in some respects extremely 

 immature ; upon no one question perhaps is he more than partially 

 right He is as much behind his contemporary Sir Dudley North, for 

 example, in the conclusions to which he had come, as if they had been 

 separated by a century. 



(Biographia Sritannica, 2nd edit.; Craik, History of British 

 Commerce, ii. 86, Ac. ; M'Culloch, Literature of Political Economy, 

 pp. 351, 352.) 



D'AVENANT, WILLIAM, wag born at Oxford in 1605. His 

 father, who appears to have spelt his name Davencnt, kept the Crown 



Inn at Oxford, and some have gathered from Wood's words (' Athen. 

 Oxon.') hints of a connection having existed between his mother and 

 Shakespere, who frequented that place of entertainment. He was 

 entered at Lincoln College, Oxford ; but it does not appear that he 

 took a degree. He then became page to the Duchess of Richmond, 

 and was afterwards in the family of Lord Brooke, the poet. In 1637 

 he succeeded Ben Jouson as laureat ; and in 1641 was accused by the 

 parliament, and force to retire to France. Two years after, he was 

 knighted by Charles at the siege of Gloucester; but in 1646 we find 

 him again in France, a Roman Catholic, and in the employ of 

 Henrietta, Being taken prisoner at sea in 1651, he only escaped being 

 tried for his life by the intercession of some friends, among whom arc 

 said to have been Milton and Whitelocke. His works consist of 

 dramas, masques, addresses, and an unfinished epic called ' Gondibert,' 

 which he dedicated to Hobbes. The only work for which he is now 

 remembered is an alteration of the 'Tempest,' in which he was 

 engaged with Dryden; "and marvellous indeed is it that two men of 

 such great and indubitable genius should have combined to debase 

 aud vulgarise and pollute such a poem ; but, to the scandal of the 

 English stage, it is their ' Tempest,' and not Shiikspeare's, which is to 

 thia day represented." (Southey.) It is in fact only within the last 

 two or three years that any managers have ventured to return to the 

 text of Shakspere. D'Avenant appears to have been the first to mix 

 the English drama with the French heroic play, aud to introduce the 

 examples of moral virtue " writ in verse, aud performed in recitative 

 music." (Dryden.) As he established a theatre ass early as 1657, the 

 times might be partly in fault, but his long residence in France had 

 probably influenced hia taste. He died in 1668, aud was buried in 

 Westminster Abbey. (Wood, Athen. Oxon.; Biagr. Brit.; Southey, 

 Britiih Poets.) 



DAVID, King of Israel, was the youngest son of Jesse, a man of 

 considerable wealth, of the tribe of Judah, dwelling at Bethlehem. 

 David when only a youth was selected from among his father's eons 

 for the throne of Israel by Samuel, and anointed by him. But Saul 

 was then living, and in apparent prosperity, and this consecration of 

 David does not appear to have been made public; for shortly after- 

 wards he was sent for to attend upon Saul in his malady, and by his 

 skill in music to charm " the evil spirit " which possessed him. He 

 became for a time the favourite of Saul, who made him his armour- 

 bearer. When a war commenced between Saul and the Philistines, the 

 three eldest sons of Jesee joined Saul'a army, but David returned to 

 keep his father's sheep. Goliath however having challenged a champion 

 of the Israelitish army to settle the contest by single combat, no one 

 was found until David offered himself, and with his sling conquered 

 the Philistine. From this time Jonathan, the son of Saul, conceived 

 a tender friendship, "passing the love of women," for David; and 

 Saul at first was grateful for the service rendered, placing him over 

 the men of war, and employing him in his armies. Shortly however 

 David became too popular with the people ; Saul's envy was excited, 

 and he sought to kill him. He failed, and to conciliate him made him 

 captain over a thousand, to remove him from his presence, aud gave 

 him Michal, his daughter, for a wife. Saul's hatred however con- 

 tinued, and he proposed to his son Jonathan and others to murder 

 David ; but Jonathan disclosed the plot, David hid himself for a while, 

 and Jonathan succeeded in conciliating his futher towards his friend. 

 Some further successes against the Philistines embittered Saul against 

 him ; he again endeavoured to kill him, and again failed. He then 

 sent emissaries to put him to death, but Michal, David's wife, effected 

 his escape by letting him down from a window in a basket. David fled 

 to Samuel, and after a time withdrew to Adullam, where he assembled 

 a forc>., and a sort of civil war commenced, David apparently acting 

 only on the defensive, but at the same time employing his small arrny 

 in defending his country from the Philistines. Saul pertinaciously 

 pursued him, but at Engedi, while sleeping, David spared his life when 

 it was in his power. Saul was moved by this magnanimity, acknow- 

 ledged that David was destined to succeed him, and made a treaty 

 with him, David swearing he would not destroy Saul's house ; and 

 Saul retired from the pursuit, but David continued to harbour in the 

 rocky fastnesses around Engedi. Here David was straitened for pro- 

 visions, and applying to Nabal, a rich man, for relief, was churlishly 

 refused ; but Abigail, Nabal's wife, afforded the necessary assistance ; 

 and Nabal dying suddenly, David took Abigail to wife, Saul having ia 

 the interval taken Michal and married her to another man. 



Saul was again incited to attack David, and marched with an army 

 to the wilderness of Ziph, where David then was. Again David 

 refused to take the life of "the Lord's anointed" when in his power, 

 and Saul again became reconciled. David now removed to Gath, but 

 continued to make war on the Amalekites, the enemies of his country. 

 Saul and Jonathan both fell in a battle with the Philistines, the 

 former by his own hand; and David, proceeding to Hebron, was 

 recognised King of Judah ; but the Israelites under Abner made 

 Ishbosheth king over them. A civil war commenced, which lasted a 

 considerable time, until Ishbosheth was treacherously murdered by 

 his own servants, when David, being then thirty years old, became 

 king over all Israel, and reigned from B.C. 1048 to 1015. Hia first 

 undertaking was against the Jebusites, whom he conquered, taking 

 Mount Zion, which he made the capital of his kingdom and the 

 residence of the ark. He then successively attacked and conquered 



