WILLIAM, an eminent English artist of the fifteenth century, whose works in bronze are pronounced by Flaxman to equal in style the first Italian Cinquecentists. His best-known work, the magnificent tomb of Richard Earl of Warwick, who died in 1439, is in the Beauchamp chapel in that city. It is of gilt bronze, ornamented with many figures in a vigorous style, and displaying great knowledge of the human figure. It is inscribed as the work of "Wilm Austen, citizen and founder of London." See Dugdale's Warwickshire.

Jane, an elegant novelist of the present century, born in 1775 at Steventon in Hampshire, of which parish her father was the rector. Miss Austen was a lady of great personal attractions, and a most amiable disposition. Her six novels are pure and spirited delineations of domestic life, with that delicate discrimination of female character which few but of the gentler sex can adequately portray. "Sense and Sensibility," "Pride and Prejudice," "Mansfield Park," and "Emma," were published before her death; but "Northanger Abbey," and "Persuasion," were posthumous works. Miss Austen died at Winchester on the 24th of July 1817.