Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/79

 . Gathered by observation.' In 1672 Birchensha published Thomas Salmon’s ‘Essay to the Advancement of Musick,' for which he wrote a preface. He also printed a single sheet of ‘Rules for Composing in Parts.' Of his music almost the only specimens extant are preserved in the Music School Collection, Oxford, where are some vocal pieces by him for treble and bass, with lute accompaniment, and twelve manuscript voluntaries in the Christ Church collection. John Evelyn in 1667 (Aug. 3) heard Birchensha play. He mentions him as ‘that rare artist who invented a mathematical way of composure very extraordinary, true as to the exact rules of art, but without much harmonie' (Diary, ed. Bray, p. 297). The date of his death is unknown, but one John Birchenshaw, who may possibly have been the subject of this notice, was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey 14 May 1681.

 BIRCHINGTON, STEPHEN (fl. 1382), historical writer, probably derived his name from a village in the isle of Thanet. He became a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, in 1382, though it is said that he was closely connected with that house before. For some time he held the offices of treasurer and warden of the manors of the monastery. The year of his death is not recorded. He wrote ‘Vitæ Archiepiscoporum Cant.,’ edited by Wharton in his ‘Anglia Sacra,' and, according to his editor’s belief, another and longer hook on the ‘Lives of the Archbishops,' which has not been preserved. In the same codex with the manuscript of the ‘Vitæ' Wharton found three other histories, viz. ‘De Regibus Anglorum,’ ‘De Pontificibus Romanis,’ and ‘De Imperatoribus Romanis,' which he also assigns to Birchington.

 BIRCHLEY, WILLIAM. [See ]

BIRCKBEK, SIMON (1584–1656), divine, was born at Hornby in Westmoreland. At the age of sixteen he became a student of Queen's College, Oxford, where he was ‘successively a poor serving child, tabarder, or poor child, and at length fellow, being then master of arts.’ He proceeded B.A. in 1604, and B.D. in 1616. Entering holy orders about 1607, he became noted as a preacher and disputant, as well as for his extensive knowledge of the fathers and schoolmen. In 1616 he was admitted to the reading of the sentences, and the year after was made vicar of the church of Grilling in Yorkshire, and also of the chapel of Forcet, near Richmond, in the same county. He received these preferments ‘by the favour of his kinsman, Humphrey Wharton.’ During the troubles of the civil war he 'submitted to the men in power,’ and therefore ‘kept his benefice without fear of sequestration] His most important work is entitled ‘The Protestant's Evidence, showing that for 1,500 years after Christ divers Guides of God’s Church have in sundry Points of Religion taught as the Church of England now doth,’ London, 1634. The book is thrown into the form of a dialogue between a papist and a protestant, and was valued by Selden. A friend having forwarded to Birckbek a copy of his book covered with marginal glosses, which the annotator entitled ‘An Antidote necessary for the reader thereof,’ an elaborate ‘Answer to the Antidotist’ was appended to a second edition of the ‘Evidence' in 1657. The 1657 edition, with this appendix, was published again in 1849 in the supplement to Gibson’s ‘Preservative from Popery,' by the Reformation Society, the Rev. John Cumming being the editor. Birckbek also wrote a ‘Treatise of the Last Four Things’ (death, judgment, hell, and heaven), London, 1655. He died 14 Sept. 1650, and was buried in Forcet Chapel.

 BIRD, CHARLES SMITH (1795–1862), theological writer, has written his own biography. He traces his descent from [q. v.], the first protestant bishop of Chester and prior of the Carmelite monks in the reign of Henry VIII. The father of Charles Smith Bird was a West Indian merchant, who was taken prisoner in one of his voyages during the war of American independence. He was of a highly religious character, objecting, for instance, to his children reading Shakespeare. He died in 1814. Charles Smith was the last but one of six children, born in Union Street, Liverpool, 28 May 1795. After attending several private schools, he was articled to a firm of conveyancing solicitors at Liverpool in 1812. His leisure time was spent at the Athenæum reading-room in the study of theology. He returned to school at Dr. Davies's, of Macclesfield, in 1815, and thence went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he ‘chose no companion unless there was