Walter Davison (17 December 1581,

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

– 1608?) was an English poet.

Life

Davison was the fourth and youngest son of William Davison, secretary of state, and his wife Catharine, daughter of Francis Spelman. He was a fellow-commoner of

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the city ...

, in 1596, but he left the university without taking a degree. About 1602 he was a soldier in the

Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...

. As he is not mentioned in his father's will, dated 18 December 1608, it is likely that he was then dead. He was the author of eighteen of the poems in the first edition of the ''Poetical Rhapsody'', 1602, the poetical collection compiled by his brother

Francis Francis may refer to: People *Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State and Bishop of Rome *Francis (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters *Francis (surname) Places * Rural M ...

. At the time these poems were composed he was under eighteen years of age. "Seventeen of these comprise a competent but unmemorable sequence of amatory poems; the last is a translation from the Latin of a misogynistic epigram."John Considine
‘Davison, Walter (1581?–1602x8)’
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Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008, accessed 31 Jan 2011

References

1581 births 1600s deaths 16th-century English poets 17th-century English writers 17th-century English male writers Writers from London English male poets {{England-poet-stub