Agnes Grainger Stewart

“ In acute diseases there was no ‘médecine expectante’ for Gregory, he somehow left us with the impression that we were to be masters over nature in all such diseases, that they must of necessity give way before the physician who is early enough and bold enough in encountering them.’ He had a memory so clear that he was never known to forget a case, and in his lectures he made his students see not only the general features of a disease, but an actual case of it which had come under his care. ”

“ James Gregorie, the third son of the minister of Drumoak, was certainly the cleverest member of that family. He was so clever that no one had any time to tell anything about him, except his achievements in pure mathematics and in the science of optics; and indeed from his earliest days his love for mathematics was such, that his pretty mother unwilling to wait till her boy was able to go to school taught him herself all she knew of geometry, sending him away when the time came to the Grammar School of Aberdeen already far ahead of his class. ”

“ The proscription which then fell upon everyone bearing the name of M’Gregor could not touch the Gregories; but the change of name, which saved them from the penalties that fell so heavily upon their Highland cousins could not and did not alter their natures, and all the Gregories, with perhaps the single exception of the Dean of Christ Church, were at heart M’Gregors. Nothing that civilisation, education, wealth and society could do to modify their disposition was able entirely to obliterate in them the warlike character of their Highland forefathers. ”

“ We remember this, and when in the nineteenth century we see a learned professor 10of the Practice of Physic beating his fellow-professor in Edinburgh University quadrangle, we know that he was not really James Gregory but James M’Gregor.
The claim of the Gregories to recognition in Scottish biography does not rest on the outstanding genius of any individual member of the family, so much as on the number of great and brilliant men belonging to it, who have, in their day, formed and educated generations of the youth of Scotland. ”

“ Revived by the fire, we were enabled to endure the next bit of martyrdom, an hour upon the low sofa, so many yards from the nursery hearth, our books in our hands, while our cold breakfast was preparing.’ What a changed life have the little folks of to-day! But, ah me! this name of Gregory to childhood. ‘The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones ...’ the son’s mixture made the name of Gregory abhorred in every nursery, and all the father’s good deeds are forgotten. ”

“ It seems to us on looking back, as if the active mind had worked too quickly. Gregorie was only thirty-six, but he had already done a full life’s work in science. Mengoli, Newton, Huygens, and even Leibnitz (who for some time claimed Gregorie’s series for his own) have borne witness to his power. In truth there was something in him that inclined great men to love him, and his mathematics are so deep that it is only the master minds who appreciate him. ”

“ For David Gregorie there was moreover much to delight in, in every fresh discovery that came from the hands of Sir Isaac Newton. Soon he was as ardent an admirer of the philosopher as ever his uncle had been. If he were made a professor, Gregorie thought, he would admit none of the Cartesian fallacies, and already his appointment to the Chair of Mathematics was being discussed. At the age of twenty-two, then, and actually before David Gregorie had got his A.M. degree, he was appointed to this Chair in the Edinburgh University, an office which had not been filled up since his uncle’s death. ”

“ The conversation among these men was often brilliant, but most of all at their students’ supper parties—these Leyden suppers of red herring, eggs and salad. Gregory’s great subjects were religion, and the equal, if not superior, talents of women as compared with men. Everybody made fun of him, for ‘he could hardly be persuaded to go to church, and there were no women near whom he could have wished to flatter;’ but he would not change his mind. Nicholas Monckly was a great friend of Gregory’s, but more because it brought him into notice than because of any love. ”

“ David Gregorie, the second son of the Reverend John Gregorie, was destined by his father for a commercial career. Alexander, his elder brother, as we have seen, was heir to the estates of Kinairdy and Netherdale, and to a good deal of money: the young brother James was so remarkable a mathematician that he was allowed to follow his own bent and devote himself purely to mathematics. But David, poor David, most unwilling to go, was sent to Holland to learn to be a merchant, probably to Campvere, the happy haven to which so many Scots traders turned. ”

“ It was with great joy that his advent was announced to the professors of King’s College. Their difficulties in improving the medical course, when the very mediciner would not teach a class, had been insuperable, but now they felt a man of influence was coming amongst them, who would be the means of promoting the interests of their university, and who would give the benefit of a hereditary power of teaching to the students, whom they felt sure his great name would attract to their midst. ”

“ In order, therefore, to be read, you must not be satisfied with reasoning with justness and perspicuity; you must write with pathos, with elegance, with spirit, and endeavour to warm the imagination and touch the heart of those who are deaf to the voice of reason. Whatever you write in the way of criticism will be read, and, if my partiality to you does not deceive me, be admired. ”

“ They understood many an unspoken heart history, and from their own strong natures gave both strength and comfort to the sick. It is no wonder then to see Burns clinging to the friendship of his great physician for support and for love, knowing it was to be found in ‘that man of iron justice, who was made without compassion for a poor poetic sinner.’ Nor it must in truth be added, was Dr Gregory any less severe with unpoetic sinners. ”

“ He was the only Gregory who ever was a regent, and he came to his work with a clear insight into students’ ways, being indeed hardly more than a student himself. But the life must have been unattractive. To quote from a letter dated September 4th, 1765, from Thomas Reid, who held the Chair of Philosophy shortly after his cousin, which is full of much interesting information as to what the work of a regent was like:—‘The students here,’ he says, ‘have lately been compelled to live within the College. We need but look out at our windows to see when they rise and when they go to bed. ”

“ A Father’s Legacy to his Daughter was intended only for his own girls, and was not published till after Dr Gregory’s death. During his time in Edinburgh he brought out besides his Comparative View, Lectures on the Duties and Qualifications of a Physician, which were his introductory lectures, and Elements of the Practice of Physic, a first volume of a text-book for his students which he did not live to complete. He thought medicine required a more comprehensive mind than any other profession, and often brought much besides mere technical knowledge into his lectures. ”

“ By a late very elegant and ingenious performance, by everybody attributed to him, we imagine it is evident what advantages the University must reap from lectures on the Theory of Medicine, delivered by a thinker so just and original, and so universally acquainted with human nature. With pleasure too, we reflect, that his character is not less respectable as a man, than as a Philosopher. ”

“ When he returned to Aberdeen he was offered the Chair of Philosophy, which meant in those days that he should teach mathematics, natural philosophy and moral philosophy, and be a regent. His former study did not exactly lead to this, and people must sometimes have asked of what use had his apprenticeship to his doctor brother been to him if he were to turn into a philosopher. But there was plenty of time to be several things in the leisurely eighteenth century. That was what John Gregory thought, so from 1747 to 1749 he was a Regent of Philosophy. ”

“ She had inherited, if not all her mother’s beauty, a great share of it, and her nature was as sweet and strong as her father’s and mother’s in one. When Sir William Pulteney, who had been a friend of her father’s, heard of Dorothea’s engagement to the Rev. Archibald Alison, he wanted to satisfy himself that she was making a suitable marriage, and with this object in view went himself to see if all the good things that were said about the bridegroom were true. ”

“ Meanwhile Gregory was made First Physician to the King for Scotland in the place of Dr Whytt. He lectured for three years on the Practice of Physic, and then he and Cullen agreed to give alternate lectures on the Theory and Practice of Medicine. The university possessing three such able teachers as Gregory, Cullen and Black, grew more and more prosperous. It is impossible to go over the records of these years without admiration for John Gregory, who, amidst all the strife that waged around him and around Cullen, has not left a record of any bitterness. ”

“ It was of course, as was usual at that time, written in Latin, but Edmund Stone translated it into English in 1726, and this was the book which Samuel Johnson read with so much acceptance in some of his dull days in the Island of Coll. Gregory imagined the stars as they would appear to the inhabitants of the satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, and gave to his book that inexpressible charm of individuality, 70so often present in the Gregories’ writings, which makes them draw portraits of themselves as they write their books. ”

“ Who could deserve mercy from his Maker if he were to bid god-speed to such a terrible machine? Sir Isaac asked the professor to destroy the model, which he did, and the little toy which may have been a gatling gun, for aught we know, was broken in pieces.
Old David Gregorie, who had been preparing to join the allies in Flanders, to see his cannon in use, bore his disappointment most sweetly. Perhaps Newton was 24right, he thought, for although he had meant to help his fellow-countrymen, the invention would soon be known to the enemy, and the Gregorie gun be levelled against his compatriots. ”

“ It was most uncomfortable for everybody, and everyone in authority determined to make it most uncomfortable of all for Gregorie. His salary was suspended, the university servants were told to take no notice of his orders, and the students were commanded not to attend his lectures, for certainly the mathematics as taught by him had turned their heads, they had shown distinct signs of madness. ”

“ During these years, too, he carried on a constant correspondence with James Beattie, Professor of Moral Philosophy in Aberdeen, and a poet. Both Beattie and Thomas Reid, who held the corresponding chair in Glasgow, were engaged in combating the teaching of David Hume, which had become very fashionable, and Gregory, though much attached to David Hume as a man, feared him as a teacher, and dreaded the growth of that scepticism which marked the time—a tendency quite as bitterly lamented in England by Samuel Johnson. ”

“ The very greatness of a teacher, which leads him to speak directly to the body of men before him with the needs, the ignorance, the prejudices, and the fancies of their age, makes his teaching unintelligible to any time but his own, to a preceding age, if it were possible, darkness, to a succeeding, platitude. ”

“ The eloquence of Dugald Stewart, which brought Melbourne, Lord John Russell, and Palmerston to Edinburgh University, is now forgotten. It is not by their books that we know these men, it is because we love them when we see their portraits; it is because Cockburn lets us know them in their homes—it is because John Brown, who lived early enough to 133be in touch with those who remembered them, has written about them lovingly and tenderly. They were delightful men, but more delightful in their lives than in their books. The witty criticisms of the Edinburgh Review have passed away ”

“ David the son and David the grandson both did most of their work at Oxford, the first teaching mathematics, and endeavouring to bring Newton’s Principia down to the level of ordinary mathematicians, while the second, who was Professor of Modern History and Modern Languages, having been much abroad, arranged to have the assistance of foreign teachers, whom he supported, not only with his influence, but with his purse. ”