Thomas Birch (1705–1766)

REVIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON,
FOR IMPROVING OF NATURAL KNOWLEDGE, FROM ITS FIRST RISE. IN WHICH THE MOST CONSIDERABLE PAPERS COMMUNICATED TO THE SOCIETY, WHICH HAVE HITHERTO NOT BEEN PUBLISHED, ARE INSERTED IS THEIR PROPER ORDER, AS A SUPPLEMENT TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS.

BY THOMAS BIRCH, D.D. SECRETARY TO THE SOCIETY. 2 VOLS. 4TO.

This book might more properly have been entitled by the author a diary than a history, as it proceeds regularly from day to day so minutely as to number over the members present at each committee, and so slowly, that two large volumes contain only the transactions of the eleven first years from the institution of the Society.

I am yet far from intending to represent this work as useless. Many particularities are of importance to one man, though they appear trifling to another, and it is always more safe to admit copiousness than to affect brevity. Many informations will be afforded by this book to the biographer. I know not where else it can found, but here and in Ward, that Cowley was doctor in physic. And whenever any other institution of the same kind shall be attempted, the exact relation of the progress of the Royal Society may furnish precedents.

These volumes consist of an exact journal oí the Society; of some papers delivered to them, which, though registered and preserved, had been never printed; and of short memoirs of the more eminent members, inserted at the end of the year in which each died.

The original of the Society is placed earlier in this history than in that of Dr. Sprat. Theodore Haak, a German of the Palatinate, in 1645, proposed to some inquisitive and learned men a weekly meeting for the cultivation of natural knowledge. The first Associates, whose name» ought surely to be preserved, were Dr. Wilkins, Dr. Wallis, Dr. Goddard, Dr. Ent, Dr. Glisson, Dr. Merret, Mr. Foster of Gresham, and Mr. Haak. Sometime afterwards Wilkins, Wallis, and Goddard being removed to Oxford, carried on the same design there by stated meetings, and adopted into their society Dr. Ward, Dr. Bathurst, Dr. Petty, and Dr. Willis.

The Oxford Society coming to London in 1659, joined their friends, and augmented their number, and for some time met in Gresham-College. After the restoration their number was again increased, and so on the 28th of November, 1660, a select party happening to retire for conversation to Mr. Rooke’s apartment in Gresham-College, formed the first plan of a regular society. Here Dr. Sprat’s history begins, and therefore from this period the proceedings are well known. (--Samuel Johnson, Literary Magazine, No. 1, 1756)… (más)