ABSTRACT
Following a suggestion from Silas Taylor to Sir Robert Moray, the Royal Society appointed a committee at its meeting on Wednesday 20 April 1664 to consider John Birchensha’s views on the theory of music. The committee met on 23 April at the lodgings of Viscount Brouncker, the president, and Birchensha was apparently asked to produce a written summary of the matters with which he intended to deal in his proposed treatise. The Society’s Journal Book reveals that his letter was read out at the next day’s meeting, which was attended by Sir Robert Moray, Dr John Wilkins, Robert Boyle, Dr John Pell, John Evelyn, Dr Walter Charleton, Robert Hooke and Henry Oldenburg. Afterwards Birchensha ‘was called in, and thanked for his respect to the Society, and assured, that the Committee, formerly appointed to hear him, and to discourse with him concerning this matter, should further consider thereof, and of wayes to encourage and promote his designe and study’.
