Edward Davenant, D.D. (16..-1679/80).
[751]Edward Davenant[DJ], S. Theol. Dr., was the eldest son of <Edward> Davenant, merchant of London, who was elder brother to the right reverend father in God, the learned John Davenant, bishop of Sarum.
I will first speake of the father, for he was a rare[752] man in his time, and deserves to be remembred. He was of a healthy complexion[753], rose at 4 or 5 in the morning, so that he followed his studies till 6 or 7, the time that other merchants goe about their businesse; so that, stealing so much and so quiet time in the morning, he studied as much as most men. He understood Greeke and Latin perfectly, and was a better Grecian then the bishop. He writt a rare Greeke character as ever I sawe. He was a great mathematician, and understood as much of it as was knowen in his time. Dr. Davenant, his son, hath excellent notes of his father's, in mathematiques, as also in Greeke, and 'twas no small advantage <to> him to have such a learned father to imbue arithmeticall knowledge into him when a boy, night times when he came from schoole (Merchant Taylors'). He understood trade very well, was a sober and good menager, but the winds and seas cross'd him. He had so great losses that he broke, but his creditors knowing it was no fault of his, and also that he was a person of great vertue and justice, used not extremity towards him; but I thinke gave him more credit, so that he went into Ireland, and did sett up a fishery for pilchards at Wythy Island, in Ireland, where in ... yeares he gott 10000 li.; satisfied and payd his creditors; and over and above left a good estate to his son. His picture bespeakes him to be a man of judgement, and parts, and gravity extraordinary. There is written Expecto. He slipt comeing downe the stone stayres at the palace at Sarum, which bruise caused his death. He lyes buried in the south aissle of the choire in Sarum Cathedral behind the bishop's stall. His son, Dr. Davenant, sett up and made this inscription for him, which I will remember as well as I can:—
Literas, lyceo, rerumque usus, emporio,
Nostris edoctus, ingentis hinc prudentiae
Extulit merces insulas ad Hibernicas;
Ubi annos viginti custos pacis publicae
Populum ditavit inopem, emollivit ferum,
Gratus et charus Anglis et Hibernicis.
Musis dilectus Latiis, nec minus Atticis,
Studiisque fratrem, hujus ecclesiae praesulem,
Sequebatur aemulus. Omnes in illius pectore
Fulserunt Gratiae, sed praenituit Pietas,
Quae in egenos tantum non fuit prodiga.
Post varios casus, in vitae actu ultimo
Cum luctu[754] bonorum, plausu omnium, exiit.
Quid multis? Scias hoc, lector: vivus memoria
Pollebat mirâ, mortuus redolet suavi.
Obiit anno { Aetatis suae ...
{ Aerae Christianae ...
[755]Dr. Edward Davenant was borne at his father's howse at Croydon in Surrey (the farthest handsome great howse on the left hand as you ride to Bansted Downes) anno Domini ... (vide register). I have heard him say, he thankt God his father did not know the houre of his birth; for that it would have tempted him to have studyed astrologie, for which he had no esteeme at all.
He went to school at Merchant Taylors' school, from thence to Queen's Colledge in Cambridge, of which house his uncle, John Davenant, (afterwards bishop of Sarum), was head, where[756] he was fellowe.
When his uncle was preferred to the church of Sarum, he made his nephew treasurer of the church, which is the best dignity, and gave him the vicaridge of Gillingham in com. Dorset, and then Paulsholt parsonage, neer the Devises, which last in the late troubles he resigned to his wive's brother <William> Grove.
He was to his dyeing day of great diligence in study, well versed in all kinds of learning, but his genius did most strongly encline him to the mathematiques, wherin he has written (in a hand as legible as print) MSS. in 4to a foot high at least. I have often heard him say (jestingly) that he would have a man knockt in the head that should write any thing in mathematiques that had been written of before. I have heard Sir Christopher Wren say that he does beleeve he was the best mathematician in the world about 30 or 35 + yeares agoe. But being a divine he was unwilling to print, because the world should not know how he had spent the greatest part of his time.