corded in very incisive language, are among the ablest papers in the archives of the Madras Presidency. Among them perhaps the most remarkable are a review of Macaulay's draft of the Indian penal code, and a minute on native education, written in 1850, shortly after he joined the Madras government. He considered the educational policy then in force unduly ambitious, and held that the funds available, very limited in amount, ought to be expended rather in educating the many through the medium of the vernacular languages than in instructing the few in the higher branches of literature and science through the medium of English. He also advocated the adoption of the grant-in-aid system and its application to missionary schools as well as to others. He strongly supported and liberally contributed to missionary efforts, and deprecated the continued exclusion of the Bible from the course of instruction in government schools, differing on this point from James Thomason [q. v.] He died in London on 7 April 1877.
[India Office Records; Selections from the Records of the Madras Government, No. 2, 1855; personal knowledge.]
THOMAS, JOHN WESLEY (1798–1872), translator of Dante, born on 4 Aug. 1798 at Exeter, was the son of John Thomas, a tradesman and leading Wesleyan local preacher in that city. In 1820 he went to London, attaching himself to the Hinde Street circuit, and in 1822 entered the itinerating ranks of the Wesleyan ministry. After fifty years of active ministerial effort he died at Dumfries on 7 Feb. 1872.
Although for the most part self-educated, Thomas was a considerable linguist, a poet of some capacity, and an artist of ability. He contributed largely to the ‘Wesleyan Methodist Magazine’ and other periodicals. His most important published works are: 1. ‘An Apology for Don Juan,’ cantos i. and ii. 1824; 3rd ed. with canto iii. 1850; new edition, 1855; this is a review and criticism of Lord Byron's poetry written in the ‘Don Juan’ stanza. 2. ‘Lyra Britannica, or Select Beauties of Modern English Poetry,’ 1830. 3. ‘The Trilogy of Dante: “Inferno,” 1859; “Purgatorio,” 1862; “Paradiso,” 1866.’ An able translation of Dante's poem in the metre of the original, with scholarly notes and appendices. Its merits have been generally admitted by English students of Dante. 4. ‘The Lord's Day, or the Christian Sabbath: its History, Obligation, Importance, and Blessedness,’ 1865. 5. ‘Poems on Sacred, Classical, Mediæval, and Modern Subjects,’ 1867. 6. ‘The War of the Surplice: a Poem in Three Cantos,’ 2nd ed. 1871; the troubles in 1845 of Henry Phillpotts [q. v.], bishop of Exeter, are the subject of this poem. 7. ‘The Tower, the Temple, and the Minster: the Historical and Biographical Associations of the Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, and Westminster Abbey,’ 1873. 8. ‘William the Silent, Prince of Orange,’ 1873.
[Christopher's Poets of Methodism, 1875, pp. 344–66; Methodist Recorder, February 1872, pp. 79, 91; Christian World, 16 Feb. 1872; Athenæum, 1872, i. 337; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub.]
THOMAS, JOSHUA (1719–1797), Welsh writer, was the eldest son of Morgan Thomas of Tyhên in the parish of Caio, Carmarthenshire, where he was born on 22 Feb. 1719. In 1739 he was apprenticed to his uncle, Simon Thomas, who was a mercer and independent minister at Hereford, and was the author of numerous works both in Welsh and English, mostly printed at a private press of his own, one of which, a popular summary of universal history, entitled ‘Hanes y Byd a'r Amseroedd,’ ran through several editions (Ashton, p. 159). In 1746 Joshua married and settled in business at Hay, Breconshire, where he preached occasionally at the baptist chapel of Maesyberllan, of which church he was appointed co-pastor in 1749. In 1754 he undertook the pastorship of the baptist church of Leominster, where he kept a day-school until his death.
Thomas translated into Welsh several works dealing with the doctrines of the baptist denomination, including the following: 1. ‘Dr. Gill's Reply to the Arguments for Infant Baptism, advanced by Griffith Jones of Llanddowror,’ with some additions by Thomas himself, 1751. 2. ‘Tystiolaeth y Credadyn am ei hawl i'r Nefoedd,’ 1757. 3. ‘Samuel Ewer's Reply to Edward Hitchin on Infant Baptism,’ with additions by Thomas, Carmarthen, 1767, 12mo. 4. ‘Robert Hall's Doctrine of the Trinity,’ Carmarthen, 1794.
But Thomas's most important work was his history of the baptists in Wales, published in 1778 under the title ‘Hanes y Bedyddwyr ymhlith y Cymry, o amser yr Apostolion hyd y flwyddyn hon,’ Carmarthen, 8vo. A supplement of corrections and additions was also issued in 1780. The author's own manuscript translation into English of this work, with additions thereto, is preserved in the Baptists' Library at Bristol. Thomas subsequently wrote, in English, ‘A History of the Baptist Association in Wales,’ which first appeared in the ‘Baptist
