OWEN, John (called in Latin, Ovenus or Audoenus), a writer of Latin epigrams, once very popular all over Europe, was of Welsh extraction, and was born at Armon in Caernarvonshire. He was educated under Dr. Bilson at Wykeham's School, Winchester, and afterwards studied at New College, Oxford, where he received a fellowship in 1584, and took the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1590. (Wood, Ath. Ox., vol. i., col. 471.) Throwing up his fellowship during the following year, he turned schoolmaster,
and taught successively at Trylegh, near Monmouth, and at Warwick. He soon became distinguished for his perfect mastery of the Latin language, and for the humour, felicity, and point of his epigrams. As a writer of Latin verse he takes rank with Buchanan and Cowley. Those who, with Dryden, place the epigram "at the bottom of all poetry," will not estimate Owen's poetical genius very high; yet the continental scholars and wits of the day used to call him "the British Martial." "In one respect he was a true poet," says a biographer; "namely, he was always poor." He was a staunch Protestant besides, and could not resist the temptation of turning his wit against Popery occasionally. This practice caused his book to be placed on the Index Expurgatorius of the Romish Church in 1654, and what was yet more serious, led a rich old uncle of the Catholic persuasion, from whom he had "great expectations," to cut the epigrammatist out of his will. When the poet died in 1622, his countryman and relative, Bishop Williams of Lincoln, had him buried at St. Paul's Cathedral, London, where he erected a monument to his memory bearing an elegant epitaph in Latin. (See Dugdale's Hist. of St. Paul's.) Owen's Epigrammata are divided into twelve books, of which the first four were published in 1606, and the rest at four different times. The best editions are those printed by Elzevir and by Didot. Translations into English, either in whole or in part, have been 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 have been published by A. L. Lebrun, 1709, and by Kérivalant, 1819.