BIRCH, THOMAS LEDLIE (fl. 1808), Irish presbyterian minister, was ordained minister of Saintfield, co. Down, on 21 May 1776. In 1794 he preached a sermon before the synod of Ulster, in which he specified 1818 as the date of the fall of the papacy. He was much opposed to the doctrines and ways of the seceders, and in 1796 published a pamphlet in which he tells how, by taking the bull by the horns, he kept them out of Saintfield. In 1798 he was mixed up with the insurrection, and, having been tried by court martial at Lisburn on 18 and 20 June, was permitted to emigrate to America, where he died on 12 April 1808. He published: 1. ‘The Obligation upon Christians, and especially Ministers, to be Exemplary in their Lives; particularly at this important period when the prophecies are seemingly about to be fulfilled,' &c., Belfast, 1794 (synodical sermon, Matt. v. 16). 2. ‘Physicians languishing under Disease. An Address to the Seceding or Associate Synod of Ireland upon certain tenets and practices, &c.,' Belfast, 1796.
[Belfast News-Letter, June 1798; Witherow's Hist. and Lit. Mem. of Presbyterianism in Ireland, and series, 1880.]
BIRCH, WILLIAM (d. 1794?), enamel painter and engraver, was born in Warwick about 1760, and practised in London. In 1781 and the following year he exhibited enamels at the Royal Academy, and in 1785 received a medal from the Society of Arts for the excellence of his work in this kind, and the improvements which he had introduced into it. He was a fairly good engraver, as is shown by his one published work, ‘Délices de la Grande Bretagne,’ which contains views of some of the principal seats and chief places of interest in England. There is one charming etching by Birch, 'The Porcupine Inn Yard, Rushmore Hill, etched upon the spot.' This little work is quiet, natural, balanced, and thoroughly picturesque. Unhappily we have not much more of this quality. In 1794 he went to America. He settled in Philadelphia, and painted a portrait of Washington. On the title of his work above referred to he describes himself as 'enamel painter, Hampstead Heath.' The date of his death is uncertain.
[Birch's Délices de la Grande Bretagne. 1791; Redgrave’s Dict. of Artists, 1878.]
BIRCHENSHA, JOHN (fl. 1664–1672), musician, was probably a member of the Burchinshaw, Burchinsha, Byrchinshaw, or Byrchinsha family, the senior branch of which were settled at Llansannan in Denbighshire, and the junior branch (in which the name John was of frequent occurrence) at Ryw, Dymeirchion, Flintshire, in the first half of the seventeenth century. Very little is known concerning him. In his early life he resided at Dublin in the family of the Earl of Kildare, but he left Ireland at the time of the rebellion, and after the Restoration lived in London, where he taught the viol. Hawkins adds that he was remarkable for his 'genteel behaviour and person.' In 1664 he published a translation of the ‘Templum Musicum’ of Johannes Henricus Alstedius, on the title-page of which work he designated himself as 'Philomath.' He occupied himself largely with the study of the mathematical basis of music, his theories as to which see in to have attracted some attention at that time. Birchensha's notion, according to a letter from John Baynard to Dr. Holder, dated 20 March 1693–4 (Sloane MS. 1388, f. 167 a), was ‘That all musical whole-notes are equall; and no difference of half-notes from one another, and that the diversitie of keyes is no more than the musical pitch higher or lower, or will pass for that without any great inconvenience.’ A manuscript volume of fragmentary calculations, made in all probability largely by Birchensha in 1665–6, is preserved in the British Museum (Add. MS. 4388), where may also be seen a copy of the prospectus, or ‘Animadversion’ as he called it, which he issued in 1672 requesting subscriptions to the amount of 500l. in order to enable him to publish the results of his investigations under the title of ‘Syntagma Musicæ.’ This work was to be published before 24 March 1674, and in it Birchensha promised that he would teach how to make ‘airy tunes of all sorts’ by rule, and how to compose in two parts ‘exquisitely and with all the elegancies of music’ within two months. The book was apparently never published, as no copies of it are known to exist. Birchensha’s proposals are alluded to in a play of Shadwell's (quoted in Hawkins's Hist. of Music (1853), ii. 725), where it is said that he claimed to he able to ‘teach men to compose that are deaf, dumb, and blind.’ This seems to allude to some intended work, the manuscript title-page for which (in the British Museum manuscript quoted above) runs as follows: ‘Surdus Melopæus, or the Deafe Composer of Tunes to 4 voices, Cantus, Altus, Tenor, Bassus. By helpe whereof a deafe man may easily compose good melo-
