OWEN, JOHN [OvENus or AUDOENUS] (C. 1560-1622), Welsh epigrammatist, born at Plas Dhu, Carnarvonshire, about 156o, was educated at Winchester school, and at New college, Oxford. He was a fellow of his college from 1584 to 1591, when he became a schoolmaster, first at Trelleck, near Monmouth, and then at Warwick. His perfect mastery of the Latin language brought him the name of "the British Martial." Owen's Epigrammata are divided into twelve books, of which the first four were published in 1606, and the rest at four differ ent times. Owen frequently adapts and alters to his own pur pose the lines of his predecessors in Latin verse, and one such borrowing has become celebrated as a quotation, though few know where it is to be found. It is the first line of this epigram :— Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis: Quo modo ? fit semper tempore peior homo.
(Lib. I. ad Edoardum Noel, epig. 58.) This first line is altered from an epigram by Matthew Borbonius, one of a series of mottoes for various emperors, this one being for Lothaire I.
Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis: Illa vices quasdam res habet, illa vices.
There are editions of the Epigrammata by Elzevir and by Didot ; the best is that edited by Renouard (2 vols., Paris, 1795). Transla tions into English, either in whole or in part, were 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 epigram matist, owed much to Owen, and translated his works into Spanish in 1674. French translations of the best of Owen's epigrams were published by A. L. Lebrun (1709) and by Kerivalant (1819).