Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/199

 cum, ad profanas historias, poëtarumque fabulas intelligendas valdè necessarium) novissimè accessit utilissimus de Ponderum, Mensurarum, & Monetarum veterum reductione ad ea, quæ sunt Anglis iam in usu, Tractatus,’ Cambridge, 1587, 8vo; 3rd ed. Cambridge, 1592, 4to; 4th ed. Cambridge, 1594, 4to; ‘quinta editio superioribus cum Græcarum dictionum, tum earundem primitivorum adiectione multo auctior,’ Cambridge, 1596, 4to; 6th edit. Cambridge, 1600, 8vo; 7th ed. Cambridge, 1606, 4to; 10th ed. Cambridge, 1610, 4to; ‘cum Supplemento Philemonis Hollandi,’ London, 1615, 4to, 1619, 8vo; 12th ed. London, 1620, 4to; 13th ed. 1631, 4to; 14th ed. London, 1644, 4to. The dictionary is dedicated to Lord Burghley. It was largely used by John Rider (1562–1632) [q. v.] in his ‘Dictionary’ published in 1589. In the subsequent editions Rider was obliged to make numerous additions and alterations in consequence of an action brought against him by Thomas's executors. Francis Gouldman of Christ's College, Cambridge, afterwards brought out a new edition of Thomas's dictionary.

The following work is also ascribed to Thomas: ‘Fabularum Ovidii interpretatio ethica, physica, et historica, tradita in academia Regiomontana a Georgio Sabino; in unum collecta et edita studio et industria T. T.,’ Cambridge, 1584, 12mo.

[Ames's Typogr. Antiq. (Herbert); Bowes's Cat. of Cambridge Books; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, ii. 393; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 29, 543; Hartshorne's Book Rarities of Cambridge, p. 211; Harwood's Alumni Eton. p. 185; Mullinger's Hist. of Cambridge Univ. vol. ii.; Patent Roll, 4 James I, pt. vi.; Strype's Annals, iii. 195, 442, Appendix p. 65, iv. 75 fol.; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Worthington's Diary, ii. 46.]  THOMAS, VAUGHAN (1775–1858), antiquary, son of John Thomas of Kingston, Surrey, was born in 1775. He matriculated from Oriel College, Oxford, on 17 Dec. 1792, and on 6 May 1794 was admitted a scholar of Corpus Christi College. He was afterwards elected to a fellowship, which he held till 1812. From Corpus he graduated B.A. in 1796, M.A. in 1800, and B.D. in 1809. On 12 Feb. 1803 he became vicar of Yarnton in Oxfordshire; on 11 June 1804 he was appointed vicar of Stoneleigh in Warwickshire, and on 25 March 1811 he received the rectory of Duntisborne Rouse in Gloucestershire. These three livings he held during the remainder of his life. He died at Oxford on 26 Oct. 1858, leaving a widow, but no children.

Thomas was a voluminous author. His most important work was ‘The Italian Biography of Sir Robert Dudley [q. v.], Knight,’ Oxford, 1861, 8vo, for which he began to collect materials in 1806. Among his other writings may be mentioned: 1. ‘A Sermon on the Impropriety of conceding the Name of Catholic to the Church of Rome,’ Oxford, 1816, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1838. 2. ‘The Legality of the present Academical System of the University of Oxford asserted,’ Oxford, 1831, 8vo; 2nd part, 1832; 2nd edit. 1853 (Edinburgh Review, liii. 384, liv. 478). 3. ‘The universal Profitableness of Scripture for Doctrine,’ Oxford, 1836, 8vo. 4. ‘On the Authenticity of the Designs of Raffaelle and Michael Angelo,’ Oxford, 1842, 8vo. 5. ‘Thoughts on the Cameos and Intaglios of Antiquity,’ Oxford, 1847, 8vo. 6. ‘Account of the March of King Charles the First from Oxford,’ Oxford, 1850, 8vo. 7. ‘Christian Philanthropy exemplified in a Memoir of the Rev. Samuel Wilson Warneford [q. v.] ’, Oxford, 1855, 8vo.

[Gent. Mag. 1858 ii. 645, 1859 i. 320; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1715–1886; Fowler's History of Corpus Christi College, p. 409; Foster's Index Ecclesiasticus, 1800–40, p. 172; Times, 28 Oct. 1858.]  THOMAS, WILLIAM (d. 1554), Italian scholar and clerk of the council to Edward VI, was by birth or extraction a Welshman, being probably a native of Radnorshire. He was presumably educated at Oxford, where a person of both his names was admitted bachelor of the canon law on 2 Dec. 1529. He may also have been the William Thomas who, along with two other commissioners, inquired into and reported to Cromwell from Ludlow, 27 Jan. 1533–4, on certain extortions in Radnorshire and the Welsh marches (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vi. 32), but he is not to be identified (as is done in Wood's Athenæ Oxon.) with the witness of the same name who was examined in 1529 in the course of the proceedings against Catherine of Arragon (Brit. Mus. Cottonian MSS. Vitellius B. xii. f. 109).

In 1544 he was, according to his own account, ‘constrained by misfortune to abandon the place of his nativity,’ perhaps (as Froude suggests) for his religious opinions. He spent the next five years abroad, chiefly in Italy, and is mentioned in 1545 as being commissioned to pay some money to Sir Anthony Browne (d. 1548) [q. v.] in Venice (Acts of the Privy Council, i. 176, ed. Dasent). In February 1546–7, when the news of the death of Henry VIII reached Italy, Thomas was at Bologna, where, in the course of a dis-