in the exercise of the mechanical arts, men whose education in early life has precluded even the possibility of acquiring the smallest portion of scientific knowledge." His plan was most successful; as the course proceeded the attendance increased, till the lecture-room was filled to overflowing, and he was compelled to limit the number of tickets. He continued the lectures till he resigned his professorship in 1804. His grateful students presented him with a silver cup at the close of his first course; nor did they speedily forget their benefactor. In February, 1823, nearly twenty years after he had left them. Dr. Birkbeck was asked by the Glasgow mechanics for leave to have his portrait taken, and in July of the same year, they resolved to form the "Glasgow Mechanics' Institution." Meanwhile, Dr. Birkbeck had settled as a physician in London, and had acquired an extensive practice; but he found leisure to develope his plans for the benefit of the artisans. He was preparing an essay on the scientific education of the working classes, when a paper appeared in the Mechanics' Magazine for 11th October, 1823, entitled "Proposals for a London Mechanics' Institution." Dr. Birkbeck wrote offering all the assistance in his power, and in less than a month the plan was so far matured that a public meeting was held, at which he presided, and which was attended by Bentham, Wilkie, and Cobbett, Lord Brougham having taken an active part in the preliminary arrangements, when it was resolved to found the London Mechanics' Institution. Dr. Birkbeck generously lent £3700 for the building of a lecture-room, and having been elected president, he delivered the opening address on the 20th February, 1824. He continued to preside over, and to take a deep interest in this institution till his death, on 1st December, 1841. Dr. Birkbeck was highly esteemed by the most distinguished men of his day for his scientific attainments and disinterested philanthropy, and his funeral was attended by large numbers of mechanics, and also by many of the Polish refugees, in whose cause he had ever taken a deep interest.—J. B.
BIRKENSHAW, John, a musician, was probably a native of Ireland; at least it is certain that he resided at Dublin in the family of the earl of Kildare, till the rebellion in 1641 drove him from thence to England. He lived in London many years after the Restoration, and taught the viol. He was Pepys' music-master. Under the date February 24, 1661-62, he records—"Along with Mr. Birkenshaw in the morning at my musique practice, finishing my song of Gaze not on Swans, in two parts, which pleases me well; and I did give him £5 for this month or five weeks that he hath taught me, which is a great deal of money, and troubled me to part with it." He was celebrated by Shadwell, who, in his comedy of the Humorists, 1671, makes one of the characters exclaim, "Birkenshaw is a rare fellow, give him his due, for he can teach men to compose that are deaf, dumb, and blind." In the Philosophical Transactions for 1672, there is a pompous advertisement of Birkenshaw's, containing proposals for publishing by subscription a work on the theory and practice of music, entitled "Syntagma Musica," which, according to his own account of it, was to be a book unequalled either in ancient or modern literature. It does not, however, appear to have been published. He was the author of "Templum Musicum, or the Musical Synopsis of Johannes Henricus Alstedius," 12mo, 1664, a work resembling more a logical than a musical treatise; and a small tract in one sheet, entitled "Rules and Directions for Composing in Parts." He also ushered into the world, and wrote the preface to Thomas Salmon's Essay on the Advancement of Music, by casting away the perplexity of the different Clefts, 1676. The dates of his birth and decease are unknown.—E. F. R.
* BIRNBAUM, Johann Michael Franz, was born at Bamberg, 19th September, 1792, and devoted himself to the study of jurisprudence at Erlangen, Landshut, and Würzburg. He became successively professor at the universities of Louvain, Utrecht, and Giessen, where he still continues to discharge the duties of his office. He is the author of some works on jurisprudence, as also of some dramas, among which "Alberada" and "Adalbert von Babenberg" obtained some reputation. When at Louvain he started a periodical, Bibliothéque du Jurisconsulte, which was afterwards amalgamated with the Thémis, published at Paris.—K. E.
BIRNEY, James G., was born in Kentucky, U.S., in the town of Danville, in 1793. He graduated at the college of Nassau Hall, in New Jersey, and studied law with Mr. Dallas in Philadelphia. At the age of twenty-five he became a planter in Alabama, and the owner of thirty-five slaves, but soon afterward entered upon the practice of his profession at Huntsville, Kentucky. Early in life Mr. Birney became interested in the antislavery movement, and at the age of forty, or thereabouts, not only freed his own slaves, but induced his father to make such a disposition of his estate, as to leave him his twenty-one slaves, when he set them free at once. In 1834 he attempted to start an antislavery newspaper in Kentucky, but finding it impossible to induce persons to risk their lives in a slave-state for such a purpose, he commenced its publication in the neighbouring state of Ohio, where it excited the most violent hostility. Leaving the west, he came to New York, and became a member and the corresponding secretary of the American Antislavery Society. In 1840 he was in England, and there published his celebrated tract, entitled "The American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery." He was at this time a member of the presbyterian church. By an array of facts, and an ample exhibition of the actions of the different religious denominations in America, he demonstrated the truth of the title of his pamphlet. In 1844, while living in Michigan, he was nominated by the political abolitionists as their candidate for the presidency of the United States. But political antislavery has never prospered. It is not easy, if possible, to promote a moral and religious reform by the machinery of a political party. Since that time Mr. Birney lived a strictly private life, suffering much from ill-health. His character was singularly pure; his mind became greatly liberalized on theological subjects in the latter part of his life, and he manifested a growing sympathy with those abolitionists who refuse all participation in the United States government, and who aim at a separation of the free from the slaveholding states. He died at Eagleswood, near Perth Amboy, N. J., Nov. 25, 1857, at the age of sixty-five.—S. M.
BIRNIE, Sir Richard, a London magistrate who attained to some notoriety in the reign of George IV. He was born at Banff in 1760; and died April 29, 1832. In early life he was employed as a workman in the establishment of the saddler to the royal family, and by his intelligence attracted the attention of the prince of Wales. He became first foreman, and then partner of his employers; made a wealthy marriage, and was promoted to the rank of captain of the Westminster volunteers. By the interest of the duke of Northumberland he obtained a commission of the peace, and was afterwards appointed police magistrate at Bow Street. In this capacity he arrested the Cato Street conspirators; and on the occasion of the disturbances caused by the appearance of Queen Caroline in London, he had the courage to read the riot act in the face of the mob, when Sir Robert Burke was unwilling to encounter the hazard. He was knighted by George IV.
BIROLI, John, an Italian botanist, was born at Novare in 1772, and died there 1st January, 1825. He prosecuted his medical studies at Padua, and became devoted to botanical science. He became director of the horticultural society's garden at Novare. In 1814 he was elected professor of agriculture at Padua, and he afterwards filled the chair of botany and materia medica at Turin. He wrote a Flora of Novare, treatises on agriculture, on rural economy, and on the culture of Arachis hypogæa, and of Cyperus esculentus. He also published a catalogue of the plants in the Turin botanic garden.—J. H. B.
BIRON, an ancient and illustrious French family, of which we notice the following members:—
Biron, Armand de Gontaut, baron and afterwards duc de, born in 1524, was brought up a page at the court of Margaret of Navarre. At an early age he served with distinction in Piedmont, and on the breaking out of the religious wars, although more than suspected of a leaning to the Huguenots, he was raised to high command on the royal side. On the night of St. Bartholomew he joined the Huguenots in the arsenal, and conducted the defence of that stronghold. He was created a marshal of France in 1577. On the death of Henry III., he was one of the first to declare for the party of Henry IV.—a politic act, which won from the grateful monarch more honours than would ever have been awarded to his military talents. He was killed at the siege of Epernay in 1592. The tablets that he carried about with him, for the purpose of noting the incidents of his military life, have become proverbial among his countrymen.
Biron, Charles de Gontaut, duc de, son of Armand, the favourite of Henry IV., was born in 1562. His military talents and enthusiasm were remarked in his earliest years, and he was
