JOHN [OVENUS Or AUDOENUS]

See also:

• OWEN, JOHN (1616-1683)
• JOHN [OVENUS Or AUDOENUS] OWEN (c. 1560-1622)
• OWEN, ROBERT (1771-1858)
• OWEN, SIR HUGH (1804-1881)
• OWEN, SIR RICHARD (1804–1892)

OWEN (c. 1560-1622)  , Welsh epigrammatist, was born at Plas Dhu, Carnarvonshire, about 156o . He was educated under Dr Bilson at Winchester School, and at New College, Oxford . He was a fellow of his college from 1584 to 1591, when he became a schoolmaster, first at Trelleck, near Monmouth, and then at Warwick, where he was master of the school endowed by Henry VIII . He became distinguished for his perfect mastery of the Latin language, and for the humour, felicity and point of his epigrams . The Continental scholars and wits of the day used to call him " the British Martial." He was a staunch Protestant besides, and could not resist the temptation of turning his wit against the Roman Catholic Church . This practice caused his book to be placed on the Index prohibitorius in 1654, and led a rich old uncle of the Roman Catholic communion to cut him out of his will . When the poet died in 1622, his countryman and relative, Bishop Williams of Lincoln, who is said to have supported him in his later years, erected a monument to his memory in St Paul's cathedral with a Latin epitaph . Owen's Epigrammata are divided into twelve books, of which the first four were published in 1606, and the rest at four different times . Owen frequently adapts and alters to his own purpose the lines of his predecessors in Latin verse, and one such borrowing has become celebrated as a quotation, though few know where it is to be found . It is the first line of this epigram: " Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis: Quo modo? fit semper tempore pejor homo." (Lib . I. ad Edoardum Noel, epig . 58.) This first line is altered from an epigram by Matthew Borbonius, one of a series of mottoes for various emperors, this one being for Lothaire I .

Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis: Illa vices quasdam res habet, ilia vices." There are

editions of the Epigrammata by Elzevir and by Didot; the best is that edited by Renouard (2 vols., Paris, 1795) . Translations into English, either in whole or in part, were made by Vicars (1619); by Pecke, in his Parnassi Puerperium (1659); and by Harvey in 1677, which is the most complete . La Torre, the Spanish epigrammatist, owed much to Owen, and translated his works into Spanish in 1674 . French translations of the best of Owen's epigrams were published by A . L . Lebrun (1709) and by Kerivalant (1819) .