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DAVIDSON.
at Harrow and at Trinity College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1871, and M.A. in 1875. Ordained in 1874, to the curacy of Dartford, in Kent, he was appointed in 1877 chaplain and private secretary to Dr. Tait, Archbishop of Canter- bury, whose second daughter. Miss Edith Tait, he married in the fol- lowing year. Archbishop Benson retained his services upon succeed- ing to the primacy. Mr. Davidson was also examining chaplain to the Bishop of Durhiun, sub-almoner and honorary chaplain to the Queen, and one of the six preachers of Canterbury Cathedral. In May 1883, he was appointed by the Queen to the deanery of Windsor, vacant by the death of Dean Connor ; and also resident chaplain in ordi- nary to the Queen.
DAVIDSON, The Eev. Samuel, D.D., LL.D., was born in 1807, near Ballymena, Ireland. In 1825 he entered the Royal College of Bel- fast, where ho eventually dis- tinguished himself in the various branches of philosophy, philology, and Biblical literature. He was appointed to the Presbyterian ministry, and in 1835 was called to the Chair of Biblical Criticism and Literature in his own College. After a few years of successful labour in that capacity, his opinions respecting ecclesiastical govern- ment imderwent a change in favour of Congregationalism, and he was shortly afterwards (1842) invited to the Professorship of Biblical Litera- ture and Oriental Languages in the newly erected College of the Con- gregationalists at Manchester called Sie Lancashire Independent Col- lege. This institution was suppor- ted by voluntary contributions and governed by a committee chosen from among the subscribers. Here Dr. Davidson rapidly rose in repu- tation as a Biblical scholar. In addition to an important work he had already published on " Biblical Criticism,*' he produced in 1843 " Sacred Hermeneutics ; " in 1846 f.
translation of Gieseler's Ecclesias- tical History (Clark's Library) ; in 1848 " The Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament,-" in 1848-51, " An Introduction to the New Tes- tament," 3 vols. ; in 1852, a new edit., which was also almost a new work, of his "Biblical Criticism," 2 vols.; in 1855, "The Hebrew Text of the Old Testament re- vised ;" in 1856, a new work on the " Text of the Old Testament, and the Interpretation of the Bible," to replace the second volume in a new edition of "Home's Introduction to the Sacred Scriptures." He has since that time written an " Intro- duction to the Old Testament," 3 vols. ; a translation of FOrst's He- brew Lexicon, with a new preface ; above all " An Introduction to the New Testament, Critical, Exegeti- cal, and Theological," 2 vols., 1868, in place of the former Introduction in 3 vols. In 1873 he issued " On a fresh revision of the English Old Testament," and in 1875, "The New Testament translated from the critical text of von Tischendorf." In 1877 he published "The Canon of the Bible," which is the expan- sion of an article contributed to the new edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica." His contributions to the " Cyclopedia of Biblical Litera- ture," first issued by Dr. Kitto, and since by other editors, have been numerous and marked by varied and mature learning, and the same is true with regard to commtmica- tions to various critical journals. Tears ago the university of Halle conferred upon him the honorary degfree of doctor in theology, a dis- tinction which he alone, among Englishmen, possesses at the pre- sent time. The volume which Dr. Davidson contributed, by desire of the publishers and proprietors, to Home's Introduction, led to im- pleasant relations with the govern- ing committee of his College. The professor was known to be of a liberal theological tendency, free in criticism^ and versed beyond most
