604 



DA VIE DA\ OUST. 



pied by a number of verses in explanation of them, 

 written in the diameters of the printed alphabet. 

 As her parents were in straitened circumstances, she 

 was, from an early age, much employed in dome-tic 

 services ; but every moment of leisure was devoted 

 to reading. A tender heart, a warm sensibility, an 

 ardent and vivid imagination, an eager desire for 

 knowledge, characterUe lirr earlier illusions ; the 

 later are marked with the melancholy traces of a 

 wasting frame, and a dejected spirit feeling the fatal 

 approaches of death. We know of no instance of so 

 early, so ardent, and so fatal a pursuit of intellectual 

 advancement, except in the cases ot Chatterton and 

 Kirke White. In October, 1824, a gentleman., who 

 was informed of her ardent desire for education, 

 placed her at a female seminary, where her incessant 

 application soon destroyed her constitution, already 

 debilitated by previous disease. Her letters at this 

 period exhibit, in a striking manner, the extremes of 

 despondency and hope. -Gradually sinking under 

 her malady, she died, August 27, 1825, before com- 

 pleting her seventeenth year. Her person was sin- 

 gularly beautiful ; her prevailing expression, melan- 

 choly. Her poetical writings, which have been col- 

 lected, amount to 278 pieces, some written at the age 

 of nine years ; besides which, she .destroyed a great 

 number of her pieces. See Amir Khan and other 

 Poemt, with a Biographical Sketch, New York, 

 1829. 



DAVIE, WILLIAM RICHARDSON ; who held a high 

 rank among the revolutionary worthies of South 

 Carolina, was born in England, June 20, 1756. He 

 was brought to America at the age of six years, re- 

 ceived the rudiments of Ids education in North Caro- 

 lina, and was graduated at the college of Nassau 

 Hall, New Jersey, in the year 1776. He returned to 

 North Carolina, and commenced the study of the 

 law ; but he soon yielded to the military spirit which 

 was excited by the war of independence. He ob- 

 tained the command of a company attached to count 

 Pulaski's legion, quickly rose in rank, and greatly 

 distinguished himself by his zeal, courage, and talents 

 as an officer. During the arduous and sanguinary 

 war in the South, he was constantly useful and ener- 

 getic, and a principal favourite of generals Sumpter 

 and Greene. At the end of 'the revolutionary strug- 

 gle, he devoted himself, with signal success, to the 

 profession of the law. In 1787, he was chosen, by 

 the legislature of South Carolina, to represent that 

 state in the convention that met in Philadelphia to 

 frame a federal constitution. Sickness in his family 

 required his presence at home before the work was 

 completed, and, therefore, his name is not in the list 

 of the signers. In the state convention in North 

 Carolina, assembled to accept or reject the instru- 

 ment, he was the ablest and most ardent of its advo- 

 cates. The establishment of the university of North 

 Carolina, is ascribed to his enlightened zeal for 

 learning. In the year 1799, he was elected gover- 

 nor of that state, and, soon after, appointed by pre- 

 sident Adams envoy to France, along with chief-jus- 

 tice Ellsworth and Mr Murray. On his return, he 

 fixed his residence at Tivoli a beautiful estate on 

 the Catawba river, South Carolina. He died at Cam- 

 den, in the year 1820. General Davie possessed a 

 commanding figure, a noble, patriotic spirit, mascu- 

 line, ready eloquence, and rendered a variety 01 

 valuable services to his country. 



DAVIES- SAMUEL; president of Nassau hall, was 

 born in Delaware, Nov. 3, 1724, and educated in 

 Pennsylvania for the Presbyterian ministry. He 

 hboured for some years as a pastor in Virginia, where 

 Episcopacy was the religion established and sup- 

 ported by law, and the " act of uniformity " was en- 

 forced with great rigour. The " act of toleration ' 



liad l>een passed in England especially for the relit 

 of the Protestant dissenters ; but it was disputed in 

 Virginia, whether it was intended to extend to the 

 :olonies. Mr Davies maintained that it did, in op- 

 position to the king's attorney-general, Peyton Ran- 

 dolph, afterwards the president of the first continen- 

 tal congress, and in opposition to the general court 

 of the colony. When he went to England, to solicit 

 benefactions for Nassau hall, he obtained a declara- 

 tion, under authority, that the provisions of the act 

 of toleration did extend to the colony of Virginia. 

 Mr Davies is to be regarded as the founder of the lirst 

 presbytery in Virginia. In 1759, he was appointed 

 president of Nassau hall, but he died, Febuary 4, 

 1762, in the thirty eighth year of his age, after hold- 

 ing tlie otfice only eighteen months. Doctor Green 

 has written an account of his life. His three \o 

 lumes of posthumous sermons have passed through 

 many editions, both in Great Britain and the United 

 States. 



DA VILA, ARRIGO CATERING, an Italian states- 

 man and historian, was born in 1576. He was the 

 son of a Cypriot of distinguished family. His father, 

 who fled to Venice afier the conquest of Cyprus by 

 the Turks, in 1561, introduced him to the French 

 court, where he was made page ; after this he entered 

 the French service, in which he highly distinguished 

 himself. At the desire of his father he returned to 

 Italy, 1599, entered the Venetian service, gradually 

 rose to the post of governor of Dalmatia, Friuli, and 

 the island of Candia, and was esteemed at Venice 

 the first man in the republic after the doge. While 

 travelling, in 1631, on public business, he was shot 

 by a man from whom he demanded carriages to con- 

 tinue his journey. He is principally celebrated for 

 his History of the Civil Wars of France, from 15"59 

 to 1598 (Storia delta Guerre Civili di Francia, 

 Venice, 1630). This lias been translated into several 

 languages, and deserves a place near the works of 

 Guicciardini and Machiavelli. 



DAVIS, JOHN ; an English navigator, bom at 

 Sandridge, in Devonshire. He went 'to sea when 

 young, and, in 1585, was sent with two vessels to 

 discover a north-west passage. He was unable to 

 land on the southerly cape ot Greenland, on account 

 of the ice, and, steering a north-west course, discov- 

 ered a country surrounded with green islands, lat. 

 64 15', the inhabitants of which informed him that 

 there was a great sea to the north and west. Under 

 lat. 66 40 7 , he reached a coast entirely free from 

 ice, the most southerly point of which he called cape 

 of God's Mercy. Sailing west, he entered a strait, 

 from twenty to thirty leagues wide, where he ex- 

 pected to find the passage ; but, the weather being 

 unfavourable, and the wind contrary, after six days 

 of unsuccessful effort, he set sail for England. The 

 strait has since received and retained his name. 

 Davis made two more voyages for the same purpose, 

 but was prevented by the ice from attaining his ob- 

 ject, in the prosecution of which Baffin afterwards 

 distinguished himself. In 1605, Davis was killed by 

 Japanese pirates in the Indian seas. 



DAVIS S STRAITS ; a narrow sea which di- 

 vides Greenland from New Britain, and unites Baf- 

 fin's bay with the Atlantic ocean; lat. 63 70 N. 

 In the narrowest part between cape Dyer and the 

 island called White-Back, it is eighty leagues wide. 

 See Davis. 



DAVIT, in a ship ; a long beam of timber, used 

 as a crane, whereby to hoist the flukes of the anchor 

 to the top of the bow, without injuring the sides of 

 the vessel as it ascends an operation which is call- 

 ed, by mariners, fishing the anchor. 



DAVOUST, Louis NICOLAS ; duke of Auerstadt 

 and prince of Ekuiulil, marshal, and peer of France ; 



