Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/284

Austin titled 'Devotionis Augustinianæ Flamma, or Certayne Devout, Godly, and Learned Meditations: written by the Excelently Acomplisht Gentleman, William Austin of Lincolnes Inne, Esquier.' The title-page, which contains an admirably engraved portrait of the author, states that the work had been 'set forth after his decease by his deare wife and executrix, Mrs. Anne Austin.' The book opens with a meditation for Lady day, written in 1621, and closes with a funeral sermon in prose, and an epicedium or funeral dirge in verse, composed by Austin for himself, in which he deplores the loss of his first wife and many of his children. Two series of poems, entitled respectively 'Carols for Christmas Day' and 'Meditations for Good Friday,' are included in the volume, and to the latter Howell probably referred in the letter already noticed. Almost every page of the book displays a wide knowledge of the Bible and patristic literature, and justifies to some extent a friend's estimate of Austin as a gentleman highly approved for his religion, learning, and exquisite ingenuity.' A second edition of the 'Meditations' was published in 1637, and its success encouraged Austin's friends to produce in the same year another of his works entitled 'Hæc Homo, wherein the Excellency of the Creation of Woman is described by way of an Essay,' 12mo. The book consists of dreary scholastic disquisitions based on scriptural and classical quotations, and is said to have been suggested by Agrippa's 'De Nobilitate et Præcellentia Fœminei Sexus.' It is inscribed to 'Mistresse Mary Griffith,' to whom the editors refer as the author's 'paterne.' Before 1671, a third work of Austin's, a translation of Cicero's 'Cato Maior, or the Book of Old Age... with annotations upon the men and places,' 12mo, was published by a London stationer into whose hands the manuscript had accidentally fallen. It reached a second edition in 1671, and a third in 1684.

[Corser's Collectanea Anglo-Poetica, i. 94; Lowndes's Bibliographers' Manual; Prefatory Addresses in Austin's Hæc Homo and Cato Maior; Rendle's Old Southwark, pp. 188-90; Le Neve, Monumenta Anglicana, 1600-49, p. 146; Stow's Survey of London, ed. Strype, ii. 15.]  AUSTIN, WILLIAM (fl. 1662), a writer of verse and classical scholar, was the son of William Austin, the religious writer, and was a barrister of Gray's Inn. On the marriage of Charles II with Catherine of Braganza, Austin wrote two poems to celebrate the union, which were 'presented to their majesties' on their passage down the Thames from Hampton Court to Whitehall (23 Aug. 1662). The first was entitled ' A Joyous Welcome to the most Serene and most Illustrious Queen of Brides, Catherine the Royal Spouse and Consort of Charles II,' London, 1662 folio, and the second 'Triumphus Hymenæus, London's solemn Jubilee for the most auspicious Nuptials of their great Sovereign, Charles the Second,' London, 1662, folio. Both poems were elaborately printed, and are now highly prized as bibliographical rarities. They are full of bombastic eulogy, and are crowded with classical allusions, explained in voluminous and learned notes. In an address to the reader Austin not inaptly refers to his work as 'this thatcht Tugurium of Poesie.' In 1664 he produced a doggerel poem of similar calibre, bearing the title of 'Atlas under Olympus. An Heroick Poem by William Austin, of Gray's Inn, Esq. London, printed for the author, 1664,' 8vo. It was dedicated to Charles II and Monck, duke of Albemarle, and was a fulsome paneygric upon their achievements. Almost every line is based on a classical quotation, which is printed in each case at the foot of the page. Austin's most readable production is a prosaic description in verse of the plague of London. Its title runs: 'Ἐπιλοίμια ἔπη or the Anatomy of the Pestilence. A Poem in three parts, describing the deplorable condition of the city of London under its merciless dominion, 1665. What the Plague is, together with the causes of it. As also, the Prognosticks and most eftectual meanes of safety both preservative and curative. By William Austin, of Grayes Inne, Esq.' London, 1666, 8vo. In an address to the reader it is stated that the poem was written at the request of 'very worthy persons in the countrey at the time of the sickness when the mortality in London' reached 'seven or eight thousand a week with some hundreds over and above.' Although Austin here dispenses with classical allusions and annotations, he employs a number of Latin and Greek words in a slightly anglicised form. A portrait of the author is prefixed to the volume. Austin was buried in the parish church of Southwark, near the monument of his father, but the year of his death is uncertain.

[Corser's Collectanea Anglo-Poetiea, i. 93-6; Hazlitt's Bibliographical Collections; prefatory addresses in Austin's Poems; Stow's Survey of London, ed. Strype, ii. 15.]  AUSTIN, WILLIAM (1754–1793), a physician of extensive practice, and author of a treatise on the stone, was born at Wotton-under-Edge, in Gloucestershire, 28 Dec. 1754. His forefathers for several generations had