which has the honour
of furnishing a stanza to _Romeo and Juliet_. The _Historie of Damocles
and Dionise_ is assigned to him in the 1578 edition of the _Paradise_.
Sir John Hawkins credited him with the part song "In going to my lonely
bed"; the words are certainly his, and probably the music. In his own
day Edwards was highly esteemed. The fine poem, "The Soul's Knell," is
supposed to have been written by him when dying.

See _Grove's Dict. of Music_ (new edition); the _Shakespeare Soc.
Papers_, vol. ii. art. vi.; Ward, _English Dram. Literature_, vol. i.

EDWARDS, THOMAS CHARLES (1837-1900), Welsh Nonconformist divine and
educationist, was born at Bala, Merioneth, on the 22nd of September
1837, the son of Lewis Edwards (q.v.). His resolve to become a minister
was deepened by the revival of 1858-1859. After taking his degrees at
London (B.A. 1861, M.A. 1862), he matriculated at St Alban Hall, Oxford,
in October 1862, the university having just been opened to dissenters.
He obtained a scholarship at Lincoln College in 1864, and took a first
class in the school of Literae Humaniores in 1866. He was especially
influenced by Mark Pattison and Jowett, who counselled him to be true to
the church of his father, in which he had already been ordained. Early
in 1867 he became minister at Windsor Street, Liverpool, but left it to
become first principal of the University College of Wales at
Aberystwyth, which had been established through the efforts of Sir Hugh
Owen and other enthusiasts. The college was opened with a staff of three
professors and twenty-five students in October 1872, and for some years
its career was chequered enough. Edwards, however, proved a skilful
pilot, and his hold on the affection of the Welsh people enabled him to
raise the college to a high level of efficiency. When it was destroyed
by fire in 1885 he collected L25,000 to rebuild it; the remainder of the
necessary L40,000 being given by the government (L10,000) and by the
people of Aberystwyth (L5000). In 1891 he gave up what had been the main
work of his life to accept an undertaking that was even nearer his
heart, the principalship of the theological college at Bala. A stroke of
paralysis in 1894 fatally weakened him, but he continued at work till
his death on the 22nd of March 1900. The Calvinistic Methodist Church of
Wales bestowed on him every honour in their possession, and he received
the degree of D.D. from the universities of Edinbur