John Austin

See also Birchley, William, 1613-1699
John Austin, born 1613, Walpole, Norfolk; died 1669, London was a Catholic author who wrote under the pseudonym William Birchley.

Evangelical Lutheran Hymnal, 1908

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Austin, John, born at Walpole, Norfolk, and educated at St. John's, Cambridge (cr. 1640). He became a Roman Catholic, entered Lincoln's Inn to study for the Bar: subsequently became a tutor, and finally devoted himself to literature. Died in London, 1669. His works include The Christian Moderator, Reflections upon the Oaths of Supremacy, and:—

Devotions in the Antient Way of Offices Containing Exercises for every day in the Week. 1668. This last work, through which Austin is associated with hymnody, attained a 2nd ed. in 1672,3rd ed. 1684, and two 4th eds. 1685. (A second part, consisting of a Harmony of the Gospels, was also published, and is of excessive rarity. A third, according to Anthony a Wood, existed in MS.) It was a Roman Catholic Manual, and contained 43 hymns, 39 of which are in the first edition, and those added in the third edition are perhaps by the editor. A few of these were renderings from the Latin by R. Crashaw, altered and adapted by Austin. In 1686 it was adapted for members of the Church of England by Theophilus Dorrington, and again in 1687 by the Lady Susanna Hopton under the editorship of George Hickes, afterwards a Nonjuring Bishop. Of the 5th ed., 1717, of the last adaptation, a reprint was published by Masters in 1856.

[William T. Brooke]

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, p. 97 (1907)