Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/283

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Austin
271
Austin

troubles of life than in chemistry or astronomy.... But the wiser among them taught the great lessons of obedience, reverence for honoured eld, industry, neatness, decent order, and other virtues of their sex and stations,' and trained their pupils to be the wives of working men. In 1827 Mrs. Austin went with her husband to Germany and settled in Bonn. She collected in her long residence abroad materials for her work, 'Germany from 1760 to 1814,' which was published in 1854. Some (chapters of it had previously appeared as articles in the 'Edinburgh Review' and the 'British and Foreign Review.' This book, by which she is best known, still holds its place as an interesting and thoughtful survey of German institutions and manners. In the autumn of 1836 she accompanied her husband to Malta, busying herself while there with investigations into the remains of Maltese art. On their return from that island, she and her husband went to Germany. Thence they passed to Paris, where they remained until they were driven home by the revolution of 1848. In 1840 she translated, Ranke's 'History of the Popes,' which was warmly praised by Lord Macaulay and Dean Milman. When this translation was published, her intimate friend Sir George C. Lewis wrote to her saying, 'Murray is very desirous that you should undertake some original work. Do you feel a Beruf of this sort?' But she did not feel such a Beruf; most of her subsequent works consisted of translations. In 1861 she wrote, as a preface to a new edition of 'The Province of Jurisprudence determined,' a memoir of her husband full of pathos. From that time to 1863 she was laboriously engaged in preparing for the press a large mass of manuscript notes of his lectures, and in that year appeared 'Lectures on Jurisprudence, or the Science of Positive Law.' She was meditating the preparation of a new edition when she died on 8 Aug. 1867 at Weybridge from an acute attack of heart disease. Sarah Austin did not possess genius, but all she wrote is marked by nice discrimination and the touch of the true literary artist. Her style is clear, unaffected, and forcible. She had a high standard of the duties of a translator, and she sought to conform rigorously to it. 'It has been my invariable practice,' she herself said, 'as soon as I have engaged to translate a work, to write to the author of it, announcing my intention, and adding that if he has any correction, omission, or addition to make, he might depend on my paying attention to his suggestions.' She did much to make the best minds of Germany familiar to Englishnien. and she left a literary reputation due as much to her conversation and wide correspondence with illutrious men of letters as to her works.

The following is a list of her principal works, besides those already named: 1. 'Translation of a Tour in England, Ireland, and France by a German Prince,' 1832. 2. 'Translation of Raumer's England in 1835,' 1836. 3. 'Ranke's History of the Popes,' 1840. 4. 'Fragments from German Prose Writers,' 1841. 5. Niebuhr's Stories of the Gods and Heroes of Greece,' 1843. (6. 'Ranke's History of the Reformation in Germany,' 1845. 7. 'Translation of Guizot on the Causes of the Success of the English Revolution,' 1850. 8. 'Letters of Sydney Smith,' 1855 (second volume of Lady Holland's Life and Letters). 9. ' Memoirs of the Duchess of Orleans,' 1859. 10. 'Lady Duff Gordon's Letters from Egypt,' edited by Mrs. Austin, 1865.

[John Stuart Mill's Autobiography; Sir George C. Lewis's Letters; Times, 12 Aug. 1867; Athenæum, August 1867.]

J. M-l.

AUSTIN, WILLIAM (1587–1634), miscellaneous writer, was a barrister of Lincoln's Inn, and resided for many years in Southwark, where he acquired a great local reputation. His works, which are mainly of a religious character, were all published posthumously, but in his lifetime he distributed copies of them among his friends, among whom he reckoned James Howell, the author of the 'Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ,' and his neighbour, Edward Alleyn, the founder of Dulwich College. Austin's name appeared, with those of the chief contemporary men of letters, on the proposed list of members of the Royal Academy of Literature, projected in 1620, but subsequently abandoned (Archæologia, xxxii. 142). In a letter dated 20 Aug. 1628 Howell thanks Austin in extravagant terms for 'that excellent poem ... upon the Passion of Christ' which 'transported me into a true Elysium,' and urges him to publish' the other precious pieces of yours which you have been pleased to impart unto me' (Epist. Ho-El bk. i. sect. 5, § 12). But Austin died on 16 Jan. 1633—4 at the age of forty-seven without having followed his friend's advice. He was buried in the parish church of St. Mary Overy or St. Saviour's, Southwark, on which he and his family had bestowed many rich gifts (Stow, Survey of London (1633), 453 b). An elaborate monument still stands above his grave. It bears a curious inscription, and was erected by Austin himself from his own designs to the memory of his first wife.

In 1635 there appeared a folio volume en--