> as lemmas

1546 S. Gardiner Declar. True Articles f. xlii^v Although they haue god author of their beynge, yet he is not author of their noughtines.

a1595 R. Southwell Epist. Relig. Priest 2 in Short Rule Good Life (?1597) I am not of so vnnaturall a kinde..as not to remember the roote out of which I braunched, or to forget my secondary maker and auctor of my being.

1670 H. Care tr. H. C. Agrippa Female Pre-eminence 79 Is this the thankfull Tribute you return to the Authors of your Being? Is this the Recompence you afford them for their sorrow and pains at your Birth?

1749 J. Wesley Let. 4 Jan. (1931) II. 376 A Christian cannot think of the Author of his being without abasing himself before Him.

1780 S. J. Pratt Emma Corbett II. lxxxvi. 154 I caught the..affection..from the respectable authors of my being.

1849 W. M. Thackeray Pendennis (1850) I. xxviii. 271 The author of her being—her persecuted..murdered father.

1886 A. Bierce in Wasp 27 Mar. 2/1 Not only was he my father—the author of my being—but the body would be certainly discovered.

1903 W. C. Hazlitt Shakespear, Himself & Work (ed. 2) iv. 63 The successive deaths within five years of his own son and the author of his being.

1994 R. Miles I, Elizabeth (2003) i. x. 77 He was my father still, and still my King!.. I must not judge my lord, my ruler and the author of my being.