Austin's work would appear to be a direct descendant of John Bulwer's book Chirologia, or, the Natural Language of the Hand which, when it was published in 1644, also included Bulwer's work Chironomia; or, the Art of Manual Rhetoricke. However, Austin does not mention Bulwer anywhere in his Chironomia. Robb and Thonssen (1966) suggest this is because Austin was unfamiliar with Bulwer's book (xi).
