Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/322

AUS his traditional popularity among the Mussulmans of the East must be attributed quite as much to their present prejudices in favour of a Mussulman rule, as to any great deeds which can be found in the history of Alem-gir. He represents in the popular estimation of India, the greatness of the empire which the Mussulmans have once more attempted to revive at Delhi, by means not dissimilar to those that enabled Aurungzebe to reach the Mogul throne. He died at Ahmednuggur in the Deccan, on the 21st February, 1707, master of twenty-one provinces, and of a revenue of about forty millions sterling. In the early part of his reign he had cautioned the penmen of his empire against writing history, and to this circumstance the world of letters is indebted for a more truthful account than could, in all probability, have appeared under his own eye, or during his lifetime. A private record was kept by Mahommed Hashein at Delhi, and published in the reign of Mahommed Shah, who conferred on the writer the title of Khafi Khan, (Khafi, Concealer.) From this work the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone derived the materials for that portion of his "History of India" which relates to the reign of Aurungzebe. Bernier, a French physician, who resided for twelve years in India, and officiated professionally at the court of the emperor, has also left an account of the empire in his "Voyages et Description de l'Empire Mogol."—P. E. D.  AUSONIUS, D., a Latin poet of the fourth century, born in 309. He tells us that he was a native of Burdigala (Bordeaux), and that his father, Julius Ausonius, was a physician. Ausonius became a teacher of grammar and then rhetoric, and attained so great fame in that capacity that the Emperor Valentinian invited him to the palace, as teacher to Gratianus, and bestowed on him great honours. He was subsequently raised to the consulship by the Emperor Gratianus, his former pupil. He spent his last days comfortably in his native city, and died in the reign of Theodosius, considerably advanced in years. His poems treat of a great variety of subjects. Some are on famous cities; others describe the teachers in Bordeaux; others are devoted to the memory of his friends and the wise men of Greece; the epitaphs of heroes, and the Cæsars, form the subjects of others. Ausonius had no idea of the true nature of poetry or its aims. Stringing words into rhythm was an amusement to him, and seems to have given enjoyment to one or two of the emperors, for whom he says he wrote some of his ridiculous verses. He thought of nothing beyond this but the exhibition of his rhetoric, learning, and mechanical ingenuity. His ingenuity was stretched to its utmost in attempts to fashion the most absurd forms of verses. He has one poem where every line begins and ends with a monosyllabic word, the word at the end of the first line being also the first of the second, and so on. He has another called the "Nuptial Cento," composed entirely of extracts from Virgil, the first half of a line being taken from one part and the other from another. Altogether, more tasteless effusions than these much bepraised poems of Ausonius could scarcely be conceived. They are wholly and irredeemably bad in substance, though curious and not altogether inelegant in form. The poem that has been most praised, the "Mosella," one of his idyls, is no exception. It is full of learned jargon, a whole catalogue of fishes being introduced. Perhaps the best bit in it is a description of the movements of a fish when hooked and brought to land. A question has been raised as to whether Ausonius was a Christian or not, but there can be no doubt that he was a Christian by name, education, and profession. In one poem, which perhaps is too good to be his, he describes his daily habits, and among these he mentions his prayers to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and another poem testifies, in a similar way, to his doctrinal belief. But his epigrams show that he was at heart a heathen.—J. D.  AUSSERRE or AUXERRE,, a French avocat, born at Lyons about 1530; died 1595. He was the first to convey to Lyons the news of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and was the principal instigator of the Lyonese vespers. In 1593 he was named first president of the parliament of Toulouse when it was transferred to Bezièrs.  AUSSIGNY,, a bishop of Orleans in the fifteenth century, author of a "History of the Siege of Orleans and of the Doings of Joan the Maid."  AUSTEN,, was born December 16, 1775, at Steventon, in Hampshire, of which parish her father was rector. Mr. Austen, who is stated to have been a highly cultivated and accomplished man, took considerable pains with his daughter's education, rendering it superior to what was the custom then to bestow on females in her rank of life. Miss Austen is said to have been beautiful, and possessed of fascinating manners. During the last years of the rector's life the family resided chiefly at Bath; on his decease, his widow and two daughters retired to Southampton, where they remained till 1817, and afterwards, to the village of Chawton, in the same county, at which place Jane wrote her novels. In the summer of 1817, she was forced by declining health to forsake retirement and seek proper medical advice. She went to Winchester, and there expired on the 24th July of that year, aged forty-two, and was buried in the cathedral.

Miss Austen published her first novel, "Sense and Sensibility," in 1811, which soon attracted attention, and the authoress received £150 from its profits. "Pride and Prejudice," "Mansfield Park," and "Emma" followed. After her death her friends published "Northanger Abbey," and "Persuasion;" the first being her earliest and poorest performance, the latter, completed but a short time before her death, the most finished, and, in certain passages of pathos, surpassing all the rest.

Miss Austen's novels are occupied with delineations of English society in the middle and higher ranks. Her characters are the most every-day characters, and her incidents the most every-day incidents. There is nothing to startle the reader in her pages. Her books contain nothing more exciting than a village ball, or the gossip at a village spinster's tea-table; nothing more tragic than the overturning of a chaise in a soft ditch, or a party being caught in a shower going to church. Miss Austen has little humour. Her ridicule is refined and feminine. There is never more than a smile upon her lips. In her own delicate walk she is without a rival. There are scarcely any books so perfect as hers within their limits. Never was there such exquisite manners-painting; never was English middle-class life, with its little vanities, its petty spites, its quiet virtues, so delicately and truthfully rendered.

Miss Austen knew perfectly her own strength. In a letter to a friend she compares her productions to "a little bit of ivory, two inches thick," in which she worked "with a brush so fine, as to produce little effect after much labour." Although never violently popular—her merits are much too exquisite for that—she has received ample recognition and fame. Dr. Whately, now archbishop of Dublin, made her works the subject of an elaborate article in the Quarterly Review in 1821. The Edinburgh Review also spoke highly in her praise, and Sir Walter Scott enters the following sentences in his diary, after reading "Pride and Prejudice" for the third time:—"That young lady had a talent for describing the involvements, and feelings, and characters of ordinary life, which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big bow wow strain I can do myself, like any now going; but the exquisite touch that renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied me. What a pity such a gifted creature died so early."—A. S.  AUSTEN or AUSTIN,, an English brass-caster of the fourteenth century. He executed the monument of Richard, earl of Warwick.—R. M.  * AUSTEN-GODWIN,, A.C., a distinguished living geologist. He was for some time secretary of the Geological Society of London, and has published a large number of papers on various geological subjects. The following are the most important—"Considerations on Geological Evidence and Inferences," Rep. Brit. Association, 1838; "Notes on the Organic Remains of the Limestones and Slates of South Devon," ibid, 1839; "On the Raised Beach near Hope's Nose in Devonshire, and other recent disturbances in that neighbourhood," Proceedings of Geological Society, vol. ii.; "On the Part of Devonshire between the Ex and Berryhead, and the coast and Dartmoor," ibid, vol. ii.; "On the Geology of the South-east of Devonshire," Transactions of Geological Society, vol. vi.; "On the Origin of the Limestones of Devonshire," Proceedings of Geological Society, vol. ii.; "On Orthoceras, Ammonites, and other cognate genera, and on the position they occupy in the animal kingdom," ibid, vol. iii.; "On the Bone Caves of Devonshire," ibid, vol. iii.; "On the Geology of the South-east of Surrey," ibid, vol. iv.; "On the Coal Beds of Lower Normandy," Journal of Geological Society, vol. ii.—E. L.  AUSTIN,, a distinguished British naval officer and artic discoverer, entered the service in 1813. During the following year, while midshipman on board the Ramilies. <section end="322Zcontin" />