Owen, JOHN

Owen, JOHN, epigrammatist, was born at Llanarmon, in Carnarvonshire, in 1560, and had his education at Winchester and New College, Oxford, where he became a Fellow in 1584. He was afterwards a schoolmaster at Warwiek, died in 1622, and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral. He had a great reputation in his day as a writer of Latin verse, and as the 'British Martial' his fame as an epigrammatist was widely spread also on the Continent. His robust Protestantism sharpened into stinging wit placed his book on the Roman Index in 1654. Three books of the Epigrammata appeared in 1606; additions were made in later editions. The best edition is that by Renouard (Paris, 2 vols. 1795). An English translation was published as early as 1619. See EPIGRAMS.