Sir John Francis Davis was a British diplomat and sinologist who served as second Governor of Hong Kong from 1844 to 1848. This publication of Chinese poetry was based on a lecture Davis delivered in 1829 to the Royal Asiatic Society of Hong Kong, of which he was the first President. He first published the lecture, the Poeseos Sinicae Commentarii, in the transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1830. This later publication introduced Chinese poetry to a wider audience and was at the time the most extensive analysis of the subject in the West.