a. (and sb.) [ad. L. Augustānus, f. Augustus: see -AN.]
A. adj.
1. Connected with the reign of Augustus Cæsar, the palmy period of Latin literature.
1704. Rowe, Ulysses, Ded. Favour and Protection which it [Poetry] found in the famous Augustan Age.
1859. Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1871), V. xl. 52. In the Augustan period this outer area was only partially occupied.
2. Hence applied to the period of highest purity and refinement of any national literature; and gen. Of the correct standard in taste, classical.
1819. Pantolog., s.v., The reign of queen Anne is often called the Augustan age of England.
1849. Ruskin, Sev. Lamps, vii. § 7. 190. We must first determine what buildings are to be considered Augustan in their authority.
3. Of the town of Augusta Vindelicorum or Augsburg, where in 1530 Luther and Melanchthon drew up their confession of Protestant principles.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1650), 23. Som embracing … the Augustane, and som the Helvetian confession.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 281. They adhere to the Augustan Confession.
B. sb. A writer of the Augustan age (of any literature).
1882. Athenæum, 25 Nov., 692/3. If he [J. Ashton] has not absolutely constructed a picture of the later Augustans [i.e., writers of the reign of Queen Anne], he has supplied the materials from which it may be constructed.
