1700, Elizabeth, daughter of John Wynne, of Coperlemy, Flintshire, and widow of John Hough of Chester.
He published, besides a Welsh piece (1693?) on duties of ministers and people, and a thanksgiving sermon (1696) in English: 1. ‘Trugaredd a Barn,’ &c. [mercy and judgment], 1687, 8vo; reprinted 1715, 8vo. 2. ‘Bedydd Plant o'r Nefoedd,’ &c. [infant baptism from heaven], 1693, 8vo (the first book in Welsh on the baptist controversy; answered by Benjamin Keach [q. v.], in ‘Light broke forth in Wales,’ &c., 1696, 8vo; Owen replied in 1701). 3. ‘A Plea for Scripture Ordination,’ &c., 1694, 12mo (prefaced by Daniel Williams, D.D.). 4. ‘Tutamen Evangelicum,’ &c., 1697, 8vo (defence of No. 3 against Thomas Gipps [q.v.]) 5. ‘Remarks on a Sermon … by … Gipps,’ &c., 1697, 4to. (Gipps thought Chorlton assisted Owen in this able pamphlet). 6. ‘A further Vindication of the Dissenters from the Rector of Bury,’ &c., 1699, 4to. 7. ‘An Answer to the Rector of Bury's Letter,’ &c., 1699, 4to. 8. ‘Moderation a Virtue,’ &c., 1703, 4to (a defence of ‘occasional conformity’). 9. ‘Moderation still a Virtue,’ &c., 1704, 4to. 10. ‘The History of the Consecration of Altars,’ &c., 1706, 4to. 11. ‘Vindiciæ Britannicæ,’ &c., 1706, 4to (in answer to Lloyd's ‘Historic Account,’ 1684). Posthumous were: 12. ‘The History of Images and Image Worship,’ &c., 1709, 8vo. 13. ‘A History of Ordination,’ &c., 1709, 8vo (completed by Charles Owen, D.D.) He translated the Westminster Assembly's shorter catechism into Welsh, 1701, wrote a preface to John Delme's ‘Method of Preaching,’ 1701, and supplied Calamy with his account of the Welsh ejected divines.
[Funeral Sermon by Henry, 1706; Life by Charles Owen, 1709; Richards's Welsh Nonconformist's Memorial, 1820, pp. 314 seq.; Neal's Hist. of the Puritans (Toulmin), 1822, v. 58; Williams's Life of Philip Henry, 1825, pp. 152 seq.; Rees's Hist. Prot. Nonconf. in Wales, 1883, pp. 247 seq. 287 seq.; Jeremy's Presbyterian Fund, 1885, pp. 12, 85 seq.]
OWEN, JOHN (1560?–1622), epigrammatist, third son of Thomas Owen of Plas Dhu, in the parish of Llanarmon, Carnarvonshire, was born at Plas du about 1560. His mother was Jane, sister of Sir William Morris. He was educated at Winchester School under Thomas Bilson [q. v.], and at New College, Oxford, of which he became probationer fellow in 1582, and actual fellow in 1584. On 2 May 1590 he proceeded B.C.L. In 1591 he left Oxford, and taught school at Trelleck, Monmouthshire. About 1594 he became headmaster of King Henry VIII's school, Warwick, where he had Sir Thomas Puckering (1592–1636) [q. v.] as a pupil. His earliest dated epigram is of 1596, on William Cecil, lord Burghley [q. v.]; his first publication was in 1606. Wood and others affirm that this first publication was placed on the Roman index for the epigram
An Petrus fuerit Romæ, sub judice lis est;
Simonem Romæ nemo fuisse negat.
But this epigram first appeared in his third collection (i. 8); in his first collection (iii. 139) is the epigram—
Ultimus in Solyma Kaiphas fuit urbe sacerdos;
Ut perhibent, Roma primus in urbe Kephas.
For these and similar hits, his uncle, a Roman catholic, ‘dashed his name out of his last will.’ Owen's epigrams, which exhibit what Wood calls ‘an ingenious liberty of joking,’ won great popularity, and retained it longer abroad than at home. He deals freely in anagrams, puns, and the like, and at best is an imitator of Martial; but he will always be read with interest for his contemporary allusions and his sprightly good sense. The best known line in Owen's work—
Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis
(fourth collection, i. 58)—is not of his own composition. It appeared in Harrison's ‘Description of Britayne’ in 1577, and is erroneously referred to as Ovid's in Lyly's ‘Euphues’ (ed. Arber, p. 142) (cf. Notes and Queries, 8th ser. iv. 446, v. 74, 192, 373).
Latterly Owen is said to have owed his maintenance to his kinsman, Lord-keeper Williams. It is remarkable that though he addresses epigrams to numerous patrons and relatives, there are none addressed to Williams. Some epigrams in his earlier collections were addressed to Owen himself by such writers as Sir John Harington [q. v.], John Hoskins (1566–1638) [q. v.], and William James (1542–1617) [q. v.] In his third collection he explains the exclusion of verses ‘in laudem autoris,’ on the principle that verses must stand or fall by their own merits. Owen died in London in 1622, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, where a memorial brass, bearing his effigy and six Latin verses, was placed by Williams. He was unmarried. His epitaph describes him as short in stature; his portrait, prefixed to his epigrams, has often been reproduced. His name is latinised by himself, Audoenus.
There are eleven books of Owen's epigrams, with a small posthumous appendix, but (except in some translations) they are not numbered consecutively. They were originally published as follows: 1. ‘Joannis Audoeni Epigrammatvm Libri Tres,’ &c.,
