DAVIS (Sir John), an eminent lawyer and poet, born about the year 1570. He first distinguished himself by his poem Nosce Teipsum on the Immortality of the Soul. He became attorney-general, and speaker of the house of commons in Ireland; and afterward was appointed lord chief justice of the court of King's Bench in England, but died before his installation, in 1626. He published many law tracts; but was esteemed more of a scholar and a wit than of a lawyer.