Henrico Caterino, in gratitude., for the kindness received from Catherine de Medici at the French court. At the age of seven the father took this son to France, where he became a page in the service of Catherine. In due time he entered the service, and fought through the civil wars till the peace in 1598. He then returned to Padua, where, and subsequently at Parma, he led a studious life, till on the breaking out of war he entered the military service of the republic of Venice, in which he served with distinction. But during the whole of this active life many details of which are very interesting as illustrative of the life and manners of the time he never lost sight of a design which he had formed at a very early period, of writing the history of those civil wars in France, in which he had borne a part, and had so many oppor tunities of closely observing the leading personages and events. The manuscript of this work was completed in, or a little previous to, 1630, and was offered in vain by the author to all the publishers in Venice, and this city was then a great publishing centre. At last one Tommaso Baglioni, who had no work for his presses, undertook to print the manuscript, on condition that he should be free to leave off if more promising work offered itself. The printing of the Istoria delle Guerre Civile di Francia, was, however, completed, and the suc cess and sale of the work were immediate and enormous. Many other editions rapidly followed, of which perhaps the best altogether is that of Milan, in 6 vols. 8vo, 1807. Davila was murdered, while on his way to take possession of the government of Crema for Venice in July 1631, by a ruffian, with whom some dispute seems to have arisen as to the furnishing of the relays of horses ordered for his use
by the Venetian Government.
The Istoria was translated into French by J. Bauilonin, Paris, 1642 ; into Spanish by Varen de Soto, Madrid, 1651, and Antwerp, 1686 ; twice into English, by W. Aylesbury, London, 1647, and by Charles Cotterel, London, 1666, and into Latin by Pietro Francesco Cornazzano, Rome, 1745. The best account of the life of Davila is that by Apostolo Zeno, prefixed to an edition of the history printed at Venice in 2 vols. fol. in 1733. Tiraboschi may also be consulted with advantage. Bayle is severe on certain historical inaccuracies of Davila. And it is true that Davila must be read with due remembrance of the fact that he was not only a Catholic but the especial protege of Catherine de Medici. Also it is not to be forgotten that Bayle was as strongly Protestant. As to the literary merits of Davila, his lucidity, purity of style, abundance of information, there has never been, and. never can be, any difference of opinion.
DAVIS, John, a celebrated English navigator of the 1 6th century. The date of his birth is unknown ; the place was Sand ridge, about 3 miles N, of Dartmouth, in Devonshire. He made three voyages under the auspices of the English Government in search of the north-west passage to the Pacific. In the first, in 1585, he pushed his way round the southern end of Greenland, across the strait that now bears his name, and along the coast of what is now known as Baffin s Land, to the Cape of God s Mercy, which he thus designated in the fond belief that his task was practically accomplished ; in the second (1586) he made but little further progress ; in the third (1587) he reached the entrance to the strait afterwards explored by Hudson. Four years later he joined Cavendish in his second voyage to the South Sea ; and after the rest of the expedition returned unsuccessful, he continued to attempt on his own account the passage of the Strait of Magellan ; he was defeated, but became the discoverer of the Falkland Islands. The passage home was extremely disastrous, and he brought back only 16 of the 76 men whom he had taken with him. In 1598 he took a mer chant fleet from Middelburg in Holland to the East [ndies ; in 1601 he accompanied Sir James Lancaster as first pilot on his voyage in the service of the East India Company; and in 1605 he sailed again for the same des tination along with Michelbourn. On his way home he was killed by pirates off the coast of Malacca.
A Traverse Book made by John Davis in 1587, an Account of his Second Voyage in 1586, and a Report of Master John Davis of his three voyages made for the Discoverie of the North West Passage were printed in Hakluyt s collection. Davis himself published fht Worlde s Hydrographical Description, whereby it appears that there i$ a short and sptedie Passage into the South Seas, to China, <<;., by Northerly Navigation, London, 1595, and The Seaman s Secrets, divided into two Parts, London, 1595.
DAVY, Sir Humphry (1778-1829), the eminent natural philosopher, was born on the 17th of December 1778, at Penzance, in Cornwall. After receiving there the rudi ments of his education, he was in 1792 sent for a year to the grammar school of Truro, then under the direction of the Rev. Dr Cardew. There is little to record of Davy in early life except his retentive memory, facility in versification, and skill in story-telling. At the age of nine he went to live with Mr John Tonkin, who had formerly adopted Davy s mother and her sisters. In 1794 Davy lost his father, and in the following year he was apprenticed to Mr Borlase, then a surgeon-apothecary, and afterwards a physician in Penzance. During his apprenticeship he spent much of his leisure in a systematic course of self-education. While yet young he had exhibited an inclination for devising ex periments, and for examining natural products. At the end of 1797, when in his nineteenth year, he turned his attention to chemistry, and read Lavoisier s and Nicholson s treatises on that subject. His experiments were conducted in the garret of his friend Mr Tonkin, who, alarmed by unexpected explosions would exclaim, " This boy Humphry is incorrigible ! " " Was there ever so idle a dog ! " " He will blow us all into the air ! " One of his investigations at this time was the nature of the air contained in the vesicles of sea-weed. To supply the place of an air-pump in his experiments he had an old French injecting syringe, and this he actually employed in his first scientific paper "On the Nature of Heat and Light," published in 1799. Though Davy s natural talents would not have permitted him to remain long in obscurity, he was in some degree indebted for an early emergence into publicity to the accidental notice of Mr Davies Giddy Gilbert, who, learn ing that the strange-looking boy, whom he observed hang ing over the hatch of Mr Borlase s house, was a son of Davy the carver, and fond of making chemical experiments, sought his acquaintance, and was ever afterwards his steady friend. Another early friend of Davy s was Mr Gregory Watt, who, having visited Penzance in 1797 for change of air, took lodgings at the house of Mrs Davy. By him and Gilbert he was introduced to the notice of Dr Beddoes, who in the autumn of 1798 engaged him to superintend a pneumatic medical institution, which he had just established at Bristol. Davy was now placed in a sphere where his genius could expand ; he was associated with men of edu cation and scientific attainments, and was provided with excellent apparatus ; thus he speedily entered upon that career of discovery which has rendered his name illustrious. He had intended, after the termination of his engagement with Dr Beddoes, to study medicine at Edinburgh, but the all-engrossing interest of his chemical discoveries caused him eventually to abandon this scheme.
before he left Cornwall, but published soon after his removal to Bristol, in Beddoes s West Cowitry Contribu tions, Davy endeavoured to prove the immateriality of heat, by showing its generation through the friction of two pieces of ice under an exhausted receiver. His first scientific discovery was that of the existence of silica in the epidermis of the stems of reeds, corn, and grasses. The intoxicating effects of nitrous oxide when respired were
discovered by him on April 9, 1799 ; and in the following