settled at Weybridge, in Surrey, where he lived until his death in December, 1859. His lectures on the principles of jurisprudence had remained in manuscript and were left by him in a fragmentary and imperfect state. It is due to the intelligence and zeal of his widow that they were subsequently collected and arranged for publication and in 1863 given to the world under the title Lectures on Jurisprudence, Being the Sequel to “The Province of Jurisprudence Determined,” of which latter she had published a second edition in 1861. On this work his fame now rests.
Austin's great merit consists in the remarkable clearness and penetration of his analysis of legal conceptions. He was the first English writer to attach precise and intelligible meaning to legal terms, as well as the first systematic writer on law in the English language. With an adequate knowledge of the principles and methods of Roman and English law, he combined an extraordinary talent for classification and definition. Fragmentary and incomplete as it was, his work revolutionized the science of jurisprudence and became the text-book of the school of analytical jurists, which has dominated the legal thought of the Nineteenth Century in England and America. His doctrines have had but little influence elsewhere, however, the Continental jurists adhering with singular unanimity to the classification and conceptions of the Roman law. Indeed, even in the Anglo-Saxon world, a reaction has lately set in against the Austinian conceptions of law and politics, owing to the enlarged knowledge of human society and the historical spirit which have so profoundly modified the thought of our generation. Austin's limitation of the conception of positive law to the commands of a sovereign, and his restriction of sovereignty to an external political authority, have been especially subjected to criticism. They are, however, reasserted and strongly defended by his most distinguished disciple, Prof. Thomas E. Holland, in the latest edition (1900) of his Elements of Jurisprudence. For the opposite view Sir Henry S. Maine's works may be consulted, especially Early Law and Custom (London, 1883), and Early History of Institutions (London, 1875). The pathetic story of Austin's life is related by his widow in her introduction to the second edition of his Province of Jurisprudence Determined (London, 1861); and John Stuart Mill has included a sympathetic but just and discriminating criticism of the man and his work in his volume Dissertations and Discussions (4 vols., London, 1875). See Jurisprudence; Law; Sovereignty.
AUSTIN, Jonathan Loring (1748-1826). A diplomatic agent of the United States in Europe during the Revolutionary War. He was born in Boston, graduated at Harvard in 1766, and engaged in trade at Portsmouth, N. H. In 1775 he entered the American Army as a major, and for a time was one of General Sullivan's aides. He also served as secretary of the Massachusetts Board of War, and in October, 1777, was sent to Paris by Massachusetts to announce to Franklin and his associates the news of Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga. Franklin soon afterwards sent him on a singular secret mission to England, where he met many members of the opposition and furnished them with much information concerning American affairs. The trip was full of incident, and, says one of Franklin's biographers (Morse), “brings to mind some of the Jacobite tales of Sir Walter Scott's novels.” He carried dispatches to Congress from the United States Commissioners in Paris early in 1779, and in January, 1780, was dispatched to Europe to secure loans for Massachusetts in Spain and Holland, but failed in his mission, and was captured and held for a short time by the British. Late in 1781 he returned, and subsequently held various State offices of more or less importance.
AUSTIN, Sarah Taylor (1793–1867). An English translator and author, the wife of John Austin. She was born at Norwich, a member of a family remarkable for the men and women it has produced distinguished by literary and scientific ability. She spent several years abroad, enjoying the friendship of many eminent persons in Continental society. She translated, from the German: Characteristics of Goethe, by Falk, etc., with notes (1833); The Story Without an End, by Carové (1834), and Ranke's History of the Popes (1840). Though Mrs. Austin did some original work, as Germany from 1760 to 1814, she is chiefly known as an excellent translator. Consult the London Athenæum for August 17, 1867.
AUSTIN, Stephen Fuller (1793-1836). An American pioneer and politician, known as the founder of the State of Texas. He was born in Wythe County, Va., the son of Moses Austin, who originally, from Connecticut, projected the Texan colony which was finally established in 1821 by his son, on the site of the present city of Austin. The latter, by his energy, ability, and hardihood, made the experiment a success; and other colonists settled in the vicinity, until the Americans became so numerous that they held a convention in March, 1833, to form a separate State government. Without heeding the Spanish population they agreed upon a plan, and Austin took it to the City of Mexico to obtain its ratification; but a revolution there prevented a hearing, so he wrote advising the Texans to form the State government without waiting for the consent of the Mexican authorities. This cost him three months' imprisonment and a longer surveillance; but in 1835 he returned to Texas, and took command of the small Revolutionary Army. In Novembcr he went as commissioner to the United States, and endeavored to obtain the recognition of Texas as an independent State. He returned late in 1836, and died on December 27. Consult Yoakum, History of Texas (New York, 1856).
AUSTIN, William (1778-1841). An American lawyer and author, born in Massachusetts. In addition to Letters from London (1804), An Essay on the Human Character of Jesus Christ (1807), and several minor works, he published the legendary tale of Peter Rugg, the Missing Man, in the New England Galaxy (1824-26). Consult Literary Papers of William Austin, with a biographical sketch (Boston, 1890).
AUSTIN FRI′ARS. A monastery in old London, on Broad Street, built by the Earl of Hereford and Essex in 1253-54, and holding the tombs of various historic characters. When the Order of Augustine, for which it was erected, was dissolved, at the end of the Sixteenth Century, the building suffered various alterations, the spire being razed and the nave walled up.
