1766. On the 9th of January died Dr. Thomas Birch, a valuable
contributor to history and biography. He was born on the 23d of
November, 1705, of Quaker parents. His father was a coffee-mill maker,
and designed Thomas for the same trade; but the son “took to reading,”
and being put to school, obtained successive usherships; removing each
time into a better school, that he might improve his studies; and
stealing hours from sleep to increase his knowledge. He succeeded in
qualifying himself for the church of England, without going to the
university; obtained orders from bishop Hoadley in 1731, and several
preferments from the lord chancellor Hardwicke and earl Hardwicke;
became a member of the Royal Society before he was thirty years of age,
and of the Antiquarian Society about the same time; was created a doctor
of divinity, and made a trustee of the British Museum; and at his death,
left his books and MSS. to the national library there. Enumeration of
his many useful labours would occupy several of these pages. His
industry was amazing. His correspondence was extensive; his
communications to the Royal Society were various and numerous, and his
personal application may be inferred from there being among his MSS. no
less than twenty-four quarto volumes of Anthony Bacon’s papers
transcribed by his own hand. He edited Thurloes’ State Papers in 7 vols.
folio; wrote the Lives of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain, and a
History of the Royal Society; published miscellaneous pieces of Lord
Bacon, before unprinted, and produced a large number of other works. The
first undertaking wherein he engaged, with other learned men, was the
“General Dictionary, Historical and Critical,”--a most useful labour,
containing the whole of Bayle’s Dictionary newly translated, and several
thousand additional lives. He was enabled to complete his great
undertakings by being a very early riser, and by usually executing the
business of the morning before most persons had commenced it.