Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/277

Austin entitled 'A System of Stenographic Music, invented by J. Austin, Glasgow. Dedicated to the Musical World, in English, French, Italian, German, and other Languages,' Glasgow, 50 engraved pages, oblong folio, no date, but published, according to the British Museum catalogue, about 1820. On the title-page is an engraved portrait of the author, who states in the preface that 'the design of this work is to represent to the musical world a new, easy, concise, and universal method of writing music completely on one line only, and adapted to all kinds of vocal and instrumental music and musical instruments, whereby an expert writer may note it down as he hears it performed, so that to those who make it their amusement or profession it will be equally interesting, together with the pleasure of improving and profiting by the art,' and, in conclusion, he remarks that 'if the shorthand writer is pleased in taking from the mouth of an orator, the musical stenographer will be no less so when catching those dulcet sounds which vibrate through the soul, convincing her that she is more than mortal.' Austin likewise appears to have turned his attention to the improvement of weaving machines.

 AUSTIN, JOHN (1790–1859), the celebrated jurist, was born 3 March 1790, He was the eldest son of Jonathan Austin, of Creeting Mill, in Suffolk—a remarkable man of sturdy good sense and great mental vigour, who had made a fortune by taking government contracts during the French war. About the age of sixteen, John Austin entered the army, and served for several months with his regiment in Sicily, under the command of Lord William Bentinck. He remained in the army about five years, and then sold his commission and began to study for the bar, to which he was called in 1818 by the Inner Temple. His name appears for the first time in 1819, in the 'Law List,' as an equity draftsman, practising at 2 Old Square, Lincoln's Inn. He is said to have gone the Norfolk circuit; but his name does not occur in the list of counsel practising upon it. About this time Austin became acquainted with James Mill and his son, John Stuart Mill. With the latter in the winter of 1820-21 he went through a course of legal reading. It included a considerable part of Blackstone and Heineccius. In 1820 Austin married a gifted lady. Miss Sarah Taylor, of Norwich. In June 1821 their only child, Lucie, afterwards Lady Duff Gordon,was born. 'They lived,' writes Mrs. Ross, in a sketch of her grandfather's and grandmother's lives, 'in Queen Square, Westminster, almost next door to the house belonging to Mr. James Mill, the historian of British India, and their windows looked into the garden of Jeremy Bentham. These were the most intimate friends of John Austin; and here, it may be said, the utilitarian philosophy of the nineteenth century was born. Bentham's garden was the playground of Lucie Austin and the young Mills; his coachhouse was turned into a gymnasium, and his flower-beds were intersected by threads and ropes to represent the passages of a panopticon prison.' In the drawing-room of the modest London house of the Austins was often found a brilliant company. There might be seen, in his old age, Bentham, the two Mills, Carlyle, the rising lawyers Bickersteth, Erle, and Romilly; wits of the brilliancy of Charles Buller, Sydney Smith, and Luttrell; and among poets, critics, and statesmen, Rogers, Jeffrey, and Lansdowne, Austin did not obtain at the bar the success to which his great talents, acuteness, and powers of lucid and eloquent exposition entitled him in the opinion of his friends. His inability to work rapidly, his habit of taking trouble quite out of proportion to the importance of the matter in hand, were grave obstacles. His health was uncertain; he was subject to fits of feverishness which left him in a state of extreme debility. 'If John Austin had had health, neither Lyndhurst nor I should have been chancellor,' Brougham is said to have observed; and, no doubt, Austin's friends entertained the highest hopes of his success. Finding his profession unremunerative and uncongenial, he gave up in 1825 all thoughts of practice, though not until 1829 did his name disappear from the list of those who took out certificates as equity draftsmen. In 1826 the university of London (now University College) was established mainly through the efforts of Austin's friends; and he was appointed by the council to the chair of jurisprudence. He took great pains to prepare himself for the task. He resolved to go to Germany, and profit by the teaching of the great jurists who flourished there. He visited Heidelberg, where Thibaut then taught the civil law. He then settled for six months at Bonn, where a group of brilliant scholars, including Niebuhr, Brandis, Schlegel, Arndt, Mackeldey, and Heffter, resided. There, with the assistance of a young privatdocent, he read many German works on law. He returned to England in the spring of 1828, and began his lectures at University College. His class was never large; but it included several men