Theodorus, surnamed Thaumaturgus on account of his miracles, was the scholar of Origen; and was elected bishop of Neocaesarea, the place of his birth, about the year 240, during his absence. He assisted at the council of Antioch, in 255, against Paulus Samosetanus; and died in 270. He had the satisfaction of leaving only seventeen idolaters in his diocese, where there were but seventeen Christians when he was ordained. There is still extant of his, A gratulatory oration to Origen, A canonical epistle, and some other works.

bishop of Nyssa, one of the fathers of the church, and author of the Nicene creed, was born in Cappadocia, about the year 331. He was chosen bishop of Nyssa in 372, and banished by the emperor Valens for adhering to the council of Nice. He was nevertheless afterwards employed by the bishops in several important affairs, and died in 396. He wrote Commentaries on the Scriptures; Sermons on the mysteries; Moral discourses; Dogmatical treatises; Panegyrics on the saints; some letters on church discipline; and other works. His style is very allegorical and affected.

GREGORY of Tours, or Georgius Florentius Gregorius, one of the most illustrious bishops and celebrated writers of the fifth century, was descended from a noble family in Auvergne. He was educated by his uncle Gallus, bishop of Clermont; and distinguished himself so much by his learning and virtue, that in 573 he was chosen bishop of Tours. He afterwards went to Rome to visit the tomb of the apostles, where he contracted a friendship with Gregory the Great, and died in 595. This author was extremely credulous with regard to miracles. He wrote, 1. The history of France. 2. The lives of the saints; and other works. The best edition is that published by Father Rumart, 1699.

David, the son of the reverend John Gregory, minister of Drumoak, in the county of Aberdeen. Gregory. dean. He was born about the year 1628, educated by his father for busines, and bound apprentice to a mer- cantile house in Holland. But as his love of letters exceeded his desire for money, he relinquished commerce in the year 1655, and on the death of an elder brother he succeeded to the estate of Kinneiride, about 40 miles from Aberdeen, where he resided many years, and had no fewer than 32 children born to him by two wives. Three of his sons became eminent for their extensive literature, and were at one time professors of mathematics in the universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, and St Andrews.

The neighbouring gentlemen made a jest of Mr Gregory for his ignorance of what was doing on his own farm, but esteemed him highly as a man of letters. Having studied physic merely for amusement, he practised gratis among the poor; and his knowledge of it being so extensive, he was employed by the nobility and gentry in the neighbourhood, but he would take no fees. Having much business during the day, he went very early to bed, rose to his studies about two or three in the morning, and then slept an hour or two before breakfast.

In the country where he dwelt he was the first person who had a barometer, to the changes in which, according to the changes in the weather, he paid great attention, and was once in great danger of being tried by the presbytery for witchcraft or conjuration. He was waited upon by a deputation of ministers, who inquired into the truth of certain reports which had come to their ears, whom he so far satisfied as to induce them to waive a prosecution against a man who, by the extensive knowledge of medicine which he possessed, was a public blessing to the country.

About the beginning of last century he removed to Aberdeen, and during Queen Anne's war he turned his attention to the improvement of artillery, to make great guns more destructive, and executed a model of his intended engine. We are informed by Dr Reid, that he knew a clock-maker who had been employed in making this model; but as he made so many different pieces without knowing their design, or the method of uniting them, he could give no confident account of the whole. Mr Gregory being satisfied with his invention by various experiments, he desired his son to show it to Sir Isaac Newton, concealing the name of the inventor; but Sir Isaac was much displeased with it, and declared that the inventor was more entitled to punishment than reward, as it was solely calculated for destruction, and might come to be known to the enemy. That great man urged the necessity of destroying it, and it is probable that Mr Gregory's son, the Savilian professor, followed his advice, for the model was never found.

When the rebellion broke out in 1715, the old gentleman went a second time to Holland, and returned when it was over to Aberdeen, where he died about 1720, in the 93rd year of his age, leaving behind him a history of his own times, which was never published.

Gregory, James, one of the most eminent mathematicians of the 17th century, was a son of the Rev. Mr John Gregory minister of Drumoak in the county of Aberdeen, and was born at Aberdeen in 1638. His mother was a daughter of Mr David Anderson of Finzaugh, a gentleman who possessed a singular turn for mathematical and mechanical knowledge. This genius was hereditary in the family of the Gregories, and from them seems to have been transmitted to their descendants of the name of Gregory. Alexander Anderson, cousin-german of the above-mentioned David, was professor of mathematics at Paris in the beginning of the 17th century, and published there in 1612, Supplementum Apollonii redivi, &c. The mother of James Gregory inherited the genius of her family; and observing in her son, while yet a child, a strong propensity to mathematics, she instructed him herself in the elements of that science. He received his education in the languages at the grammar-school of Aberdeen, and went through the usual course of academical studies in the Marischal college.

At the age of 24 he published his treatise, entitled Optica Promota, seu abdita radiorum reflexorum et refractorum mysteria, geometricè enucleata; cui subnecitur appendix subtilissimorum affrononim problematum resolutionem exhibens, London 1663; a work of great genius, in which he gave the world an invention of his own, and one of the most valuable of the modern discoveries, the construction of the reflecting telescope. This discovery immediately attracted the attention of the mathematicians, both of our own and of foreign countries, who were soon convinced of its great importance to the sciences of optics and astronomy. The manner of placing the two specula upon the same axis appearing to Sir Isaac Newton to be attended with the disadvantage of losing the central rays of the larger speculum, he proposed an improvement on the instrument, by giving an oblique position to the smaller speculum, and placing the eye-glass in the side of the tube. But it is worth remarking, that the Newtonian construction of that instrument was long abandoned for the original or Gregorian, which is at this day universally employed where the instrument is of a moderate size; though Mr Herschel has preferred the Newtonian form for the construction of those immense telescopes, which of late years he has so successfully employed in observing the heavens.

The university of Padua being at that time in high reputation for mathematical studies, James Gregory went thither soon after the publication of his first work; and fixing his residence there for some years, he published, in 1667, Vera Circuli et Hyperbolae quadratura; in which he propounded another discovery of his own, the invention of an infinitely converging series for the areas of the circle and hyperbola. To this treatise, when republished in 1668, he added a new work, entitled, Geometricè pars universalis, infervens quantitatum curvarum transmutationi et mensurae; in which he is allowed to have thrown, for the first time, a method for the transmutation of curves. These works engaged the notice, and procured Mr Gregory the correspondence, of the greatest mathematicians of the age, Newton, Huygens, Halley, and Wallis; and their author being soon after chosen a fellow of the royal society of London, contributed to enrich the Philosophical Transactions at that time by many excellent papers. Through this channel, in particular, he carried on a dispute with Mr Huygens, upon the occasion of his treatise on the quadrature of the circle and hyperbola, to which Gregory, which that able mathematician had started some objections. Of this controversy, it is unnecessary to enter into particulars. It is sufficient to say, that, in the opinion of Leibnitz, who allows Mr Gregory the highest merit for his genius and discoveries, Mr Huygens has pointed out, though not errors, some considerable deficiencies in the treatise above mentioned, and shown a much simpler method of attaining the end in view.

In 1668, Mr James Gregory published at London another work, entitled *Exercitationes Geometricae*, which contributed still to extend his reputation. About this time he was elected professor of mathematics in the university of St Andrew's; an office which he held for six years. During his residence there, he married, in 1669, Mary, the daughter of George Jamison the celebrated painter, whom Mr Walpole has termed the Vandyke of Scotland, and who was fellow-disciple with that great artist in the school of Rubens at Antwerp.

In 1674, he was called to Edinburgh, to fill the chair of mathematics in that university. This place he had held for little more than a year, when, in October 1675, being employed in showing the satellites of Jupiter through a telescope to some of his pupils, he was suddenly struck with total blindness, and died a few days after, at the early age of 37.

He was a man of an acute and penetrating genius. His temper seems to have been warm, as appears from the conduct of his dispute with Mr Huygens; and, conscious perhaps of his own merits as a discoverer, he seems to have been jealous of losing any portion of his reputation by the improvements of others upon his inventions.

**Gregory, David**, Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford, whom Dr Smith has termed *subtilissimi ingenii mathematici*, was the eldest son of Mr Gregory of Kinmaid, brother of the above-mentioned Mr James Gregory. He was born at Aberdeen in 1661, and received the earlier parts of his education in that city. He completed his studies at Edinburgh; and, being possessed of the mathematical papers of his uncle, soon distinguished himself likewise as the heir of his genius. In the 23rd year of his age, he was elected professor of mathematics in the university of Edinburgh; and published, in the same year, *Exercitatio Geometrica de dimensione figurarum, five specimen methodi generalis diometriendi quasvis figurarum*, Edinburgh, 1684, 4to. He saw very early the excellence of the Newtonian philosophy; and had the merit of being the first who introduced it into the schools by his public lectures at Edinburgh. "He had (says Mr Whiston) already caused several of his scholars to keep acts, as we call them, upon several branches of the Newtonian philosophy; while at Cambridge, poor wretches, were ignominiously studying the fictitious hypotheses of the Carte."

In 1691, on the report of Dr Bernard's intention of resigning the Savilian professorship of astronomy at Oxford, David Gregory went to London; and being patronized by Sir Isaac Newton, and warmly befriended by Mr Flamsteed, the astronomer royal, he obtained the vacant professorship, for which Dr Halley was a competitor. This rivalry, however, instead of animosity, laid the foundation of friendship between these eminent men; and Halley soon after became the colleague of Gregory, by obtaining the professorship of geometry in the same university. Soon after his arrival in London, Mr Gregory had been elected a fellow of the royal society; and, previously to his election into the Savilian professorship, had the degree of doctor of physic conferred on him by the university of Oxford.

In 1693, he published in the Philosophical Transactions a solution of the Florentine problem *de Telescopio sveliformi quadribilis*; and he continued to communicate to the public, from time to time, many ingenious mathematical papers by the same channel. In 1695, he printed at Oxford *Catoptrice et Dioptrice Sphaerica Elementa*; a work which, as he informs us in his preface, contains the substance of some of his public lectures read, eleven years before, at Edinburgh. This valuable treatise was republished first with additions by Dr William Brown, with the recommendation of Mr Jones and Dr Deaguliers; and afterwards by the latter of these gentlemen, with an appendix containing an account of the Gregorian and Newtonian telescopes, together with Mr Hadley's tables for the construction of both those instruments. It is not unworthy of remark, that, in the end of this treatise, there is an observation which shows, that what is generally believed to be a discovery of a much later date, the construction of achromatic telescopes, which has been carried to great perfection by Mr Dollond and Mr Ramsden, had suggested itself to the mind of David Gregory, from the reflection on the admirable contrivance of nature in combining the different humours of the eye. The passage is as follows: "Quod si ob difficulitates physicas in speculis idoneis torno elaborandis et poliendis, etiammum lentibus uti oporteat, fortassis media diversa densitate ad lentem objectivam componendam adhibere utile foret, ut a natura factum observamus in oculi fabrica, ubi cribrallinus humor (fere ejusdem cum vitro virtutis ad radius lucis refringendos) aquo et vitreo (aquea quoad refractionem habet abilim) conjungitur, ad imaginem quam distincte fieri poterit, a natura nihil frustra moliente, in oculi fundo depingendam." *Catopt. et Diopi. Sphaer. Elem. Oxon.* 1695, p. 98.

In 1702 our author published at Oxford, *Astronomiae Physicae*

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(a) On obtaining the above professorship, he was succeeded in the mathematical chair at Edinburgh by his brother James, likewise an eminent mathematician; who held that office for 33 years, and retiring in 1725 was succeeded by the celebrated MacLaurin. A daughter of this professor James Gregory, a young lady of great beauty and accomplishments, was the victim of an unfortunate attachment, which furnished the subject of Mallet's well-known ballad of William and Margaret.

Another brother, Charles, was created professor of mathematics at St Andrew's by Queen Anne in 1707. This office he held with reputation and ability for 32 years; and, resigning in 1739, was succeeded by his son, who eminently inherited the talents of his family, and died in 1763. Gregory, Physice et Geometrice Elementa; a work which is accounted his masterpiece. It is founded on the Newtonian doctrines, and was esteemed by Sir Isaac Newton himself as a most excellent explanation and defence of his philosophy. In the following year he gave to the world an edition in folio of the works of Euclid in Greek and Latin; in prosecution of a design of his predecessor Dr Bernard, of printing the works of all the ancient mathematicians. In this work, although it contains all the treatises attributed to Euclid, Dr Gregory has been careful to point out such as he found reason, from internal evidence, to believe to be the productions of some inferior geometrician. In prosecution of Dr Bernard's plan, Dr Gregory engaged, soon after, with his colleague Halley, in the publication of the Conics of Apollonius; but he had proceeded but a little way in this undertaking when he died, in the 49th year of his age, at Maidenhead in Berkshire, A.D. 1716.

To the genius and abilities of David Gregory, the most celebrated mathematicians of the age, Sir Isaac Newton, Dr Halley, and Dr Keill, have given ample testimonies. Indeed it appears that he enjoyed, in a high degree, the confidence and friendship of Sir Isaac Newton. This philosopher entrusted him with a manuscript copy of his Principia, for the purpose of making observations on that work. Of these observations there is a complete copy preserved in the library of the University of Edinburgh. They contain many valuable commentaries on the Principia, many interesting anecdotes, and various sublime mathematical difficulties. Some of the paragraphs are in the handwriting of Huygens, and they relate to the theory of light of this philosopher. The observations of Dr Gregory had come too late for the first edition of Newton's great work; but he availed himself of them in the second. Besides those works published in his lifetime, he left in manuscript, A Short Treatise of the Nature and Arithmetic of Logarithms, which is printed at the end of Dr Keill's translation of Commandine's Euclid; and a Treatise of Practical Geometry, which was afterwards translated, and published in 1745, by Mr MacLaurin.

Dr David Gregory married in 1695, Elizabeth the daughter of Mr Oliphant of Langtown in Scotland. By this lady he had four sons, of whom, the eldest, David, was appointed regius professor of modern history at Oxford by King George I., and died in 1767, in an advanced age, after enjoying for many years the dignity of dean of Christ-church in that university.

Gregory, Dr John, professor of medicine in the university of Edinburgh, was the son of Dr James Gregory professor of medicine in King's college Aberdeen, and grandson of James the inventor of the Gregorian telescope. His father was first married to Catharine Forbes, daughter of Sir John Forbes of Monymusk; by whom he had six children, most of whom died in infancy. He married afterwards Ann Chalmers, only daughter of the Rev. Mr George Chalmers principal of King's college, by whom he had two sons and a daughter. John, the youngest of the three, was born at Aberdeen, June 3, 1724. Losing his father when only in the 7th year of his age, the care of his education devolved on his grandfather Principal Chalmers, and on his elder brother Dr James Gregory, who, upon the resignation of their father a short time before his death, had been appointed to succeed him in the professorship of medicine in King's college. He likewise owed much in his infant years, and during the whole course of his studies, to the care and attention of his cousin, the celebrated Dr Reid, afterwards of the university of Glasgow.

The rudiments of our author's classical education he received at the grammar-school of Aberdeen; and under the eye of his grandfather, he completed, in King's college, his studies in the Latin and Greek languages, and in the sciences of ethics, mathematics, and natural philosophy. His master in philosophy and in mathematics was Mr Thomas Gordon, philosophy professor of King's college, who ably filled an academical chair for above half a century.

In 1742, Mr Gregory went to Edinburgh, where the school of medicine was then rising to that celebrity which has since so remarkably distinguished it. Here he attended the anatomical lectures of the elder Dr Monro, of Dr Sinclair on the theory of medicine, and of Dr Rutherford on the practice. He heard likewise the prelections of Dr Alston on the materia medica and botany, and of Dr Plumer on chemistry. The medical society of Edinburgh, instituted for the free discussion of all questions relative to medicine and philosophy, had begun to meet in 1737. Of this society we find Mr Gregory a member in 1742, at the time when Dr Mark Akenside, his fellow student and intimate companion, was a member of the same institution.

In the year 1745 our author went to Leyden, and attended the lectures of those celebrated professors Gaubius, Albins, and Van Royen. While at this place he had the honour of receiving from the King's college of Aberdeen, his alma mater, who regarded him as a favourite son, an unsolicited degree of doctor of medicine; and soon after, on his return thither from Holland, he was elected professor of philosophy in the same university. In this capacity he read lectures during the years 1747, 1748, and 1749, on mathematics, on experimental philosophy, and on moral philosophy. In the end of 1749, however, he chose to resign his professorship of philosophy, his views being turned chiefly to the practice of physic, with which he apprehended the duties of this professorship, occupying a great portion of his time, too much interfered. Previously, however, to his settling as a physician at Aberdeen, he went for a few months to the continent; a tour of which the chief motive was probably amusement, though, to a mind like his, certainly not without its profit in the enlargement of ideas, and an increased knowledge of mankind.

Some time after his return to Scotland, Dr Gregory married in 1752, Elisabeth daughter of William Lord Forbes; a young lady who, to the exterior endowments of great beauty and engaging manners, joined a very superior understanding, and an uncommon share of wit. With her he received a handsome addition of fortune; and during the whole period of their union, which was but for the space of nine years, enjoyed the highest portion of domestic happiness. Of her character it is enough to say, that her husband, in that admired little work, A Father's Legacy to his Daughters, the last proof of his affection for them, declares, that "while he endeavours to point out what they should be, he draws but a very faint and imperfect picture of what their mother was." The field of medical practice at Aberdeen being at that time in a great measure occupied Gregory, occupied by his elder brother Dr James Gregory, and others of some note in their profession, our author determined to try his fortune in London. Thither accordingly he went in 1754; and being already known by reputation as a man of genius, he found an easy introduction to many persons of distinction both in the literary and polite world. The late George Lord Lyttelton was his friend and patron. An attachment, which was founded on a striking similarity of manners, of tastes, and of dispositions, grew up into a firm and permanent friendship; and to that nobleman, to whom Dr Gregory was wont to communicate all his literary productions, the world is indebted for the publication of the Comparative View of the State and Faculties of Man, which made him first known as an author. Dr Gregory likewise enjoyed the friendship of the late Edward Montagu, Esq. and of his lady, the celebrated champion of the fame of Shakespeare, against the cavils and calumnies of Voltaire. At her assemblies, or conversations, the resort of taste and genius, our author had an opportunity of cultivating an acquaintance with many of the most distinguished literary characters of the present times.

In 1754 Dr Gregory was chosen fellow of the royal society of London; and daily advancing in the public esteem, it is not to be doubted, that, had he continued his residence in that metropolis, his professional talents would have found their reward in a very extensive practice. But the death of his brother, Dr James Gregory, in November 1755, occasioning a vacancy in the professorship of physic in King's college, Aberdeen, which he was solicited to fill, he returned to his native country in the beginning of the following year, and took upon him the duties of that office to which he had been elected in his absence.

Here our author remained till the end of the year 1764, when urged by a very laudable ambition, and presuming on the reputation he had acquired as affording a reasonable prospect of success in a more extended field of practice, he changed his place of residence for Edinburgh. His friends in that metropolis had represented to him the situation of the college of medicine as favourable to his views of filling a professorial chair in that university; which accordingly he obtained in 1766, on the resignation of Dr Rutherford, professor of the practice of physic. In the same year he had the honour of being appointed first physician to his majesty for Scotland on the death of Dr Whytt.

On his first establishment in the university of Edinburgh, Dr Gregory gave lectures on the practice of physic during the years 1767, 1768, and 1769. Afterwards, by agreement with Dr Cullen, professor of the theory of physic, these two eminent men gave alternate courses of the theory and of the practice.—As a public speaker, Dr Gregory's manner was simple, natural, and animated. Without the graces of oratory, which the subject he had to treat in a great degree precluded, he expressed his ideas with uncommon perspicuity, and in a style happily attempted between the formality of studied composition and the ease of conversation. It was his custom to premeditate, for a short time before entering the college, the subject of his lecture, consulting those authors to whom he had occasion to refer, and marking in short notes the arrangement of his intended discourse; then fully master of his subject, and confident of his own powers, he trusted to his natural facility of expression to convey those opinions which he had maturely deliberated. The only lectures which he committed fully to writing, were those introductory discourses which he read at the beginning of his annual course, and which are published in these volumes under the title of Lectures on the Duties and Qualifications of a Physician. Of these, which were written with no view to publication, many copies were taken by his pupils, and some from the original manuscript, which he freely lent for their perusal. On hearing that a copy had been offered for sale to a bookseller, it became necessary to anticipate a fraudulent, and perhaps a mutilated publication, by authorising an impression from a corrected copy, of which he gave the profits to a favourite pupil. These lectures were first published in 1770, and afterwards in an enlarged and more perfect form in 1772.

In the same year, 1772, Dr Gregory published Elements of the Practice of Physic, for the use of Students: a work intended solely for his own pupils, and to be used by himself as a text-book to be commented upon in his course of lectures. In an advertisement prefixed to this work, he signified his intention of comprehending in it the whole series of diseases of which he treated in his lectures on the Practice of Physic; but this intention he did not live to accomplish, having brought down the work no further than to the end of the class of Febrile Diseases.—In his academical lectures, Dr Gregory never attempted to mislead the flatterer by flattering views of the perfection of the science; but was, on the contrary, anxious to point out its defects; wisely judging that a thorough sense of the imperfection of an art or science is the first step towards its improvement. In this view he was careful to expose the fallaciousness of the several theories and hypotheses which have had the most extensive currency, and perpetually inculcated the danger of systematizing with limited experience, or an imperfect knowledge of facts. Yet in the work last mentioned it will appear from the order in which he has treated of the several diseases, that he did not entirely neglect the systematic arrangements of other authors. These, however, he warned his pupils, that he had not adopted from any conviction of the rectitude of those theories to which they referred, but only as affording that degree of method, and regularity of plan, which is found to be the best help to the study of any science. Considering a rational theory of physic to be as yet a desideratum, it was his object to communicate to his pupils the greatest portion of practical knowledge, as the only basis on which such a theory could ever be reared. His method, in treating of the several diseases, was first to mention those symptoms which are understood among physicians to characterize or define a disease; proceeding from the general to the more particular series of symptoms and their occasional varieties; to point out accurately the diagnostic symptoms, or those by which one disease is essentially distinguished from others that resemble it, and to mark likewise the prognostics by which a physician is enabled to conjecture of the probable event of a disease, whether favourable or otherwise. He then proceeded to specify the various causes, predisposing, occasional, and proximate; accounting, as far as he thought could be done Gregory, on just principles, for the appearance of the several symptoms; and, finally, he pointed out the general plan of cure, the particular remedies to be employed, and the cautions requisite in the administration of them. Thus desirous of establishing the science of medicine upon the solid foundation of practice and experience; and knowing that many things asserted as facts by medical writers have been assumed on a very careless observation, while confirming a favourite theory; and that, on the other hand, many real and important facts have, from the same spirit of system, been explained away and discredited; he constantly endeavoured, both by his precept and example, to inculcate to his pupils the necessity of extreme caution either in admitting or in denying medical facts, or what are commonly given as such. To the desire of enforcing this necessary caution is owing that multitude of queries respecting matters of fact, as well as matters of opinion, which occurs in the Elements of the Practice of Physic.

Dr Gregory, soon after the death of his wife, and, as he himself says, "for the amusement of his solitary hours," employed himself in the composition of that admirable tract, entitled, A Father's Legacy to his Daughters; a work which, though certainly never intended by its author for the public eye, it would have been an unwarrantable diminution of his fame, and a capricious refusal of a general benefit to mankind, to have limited to the sole purpose for which it was originally designed. It was, therefore, with great propriety, published after the author's death by his eldest son. This work is a most amiable display of the piety and goodness of his heart, and his consummate knowledge of human nature and of the world. It manifests such solicitude for their welfare, as strongly recommends the advice which he gives. He speaks of the female sex in the most honourable terms, and labours to increase its estimation, whilst he plainly, yet gently, and tenderly, points out the errors into which young ladies are prone to fall.—It is particularly observable, in what high and honourable terms he speaks of the Holy Scriptures, of Christian worship, and faithful ministers; how warmly he recommends to his daughters the serious and devout worship of God in public and private. He dwells largely on that temper and behaviour, which were particularly suited to their education, rank, and circumstances; and recommends that gentleness, benevolence, and modesty, which adorn the character of the ladies, and do particular honour to their sex. His advices, with regard to love, courtship, and marriage, are peculiarly wise, and interesting to them. They show what careful observation he had made on female domestic conduct, and on the different effects of possessing or wanting the virtues and qualities which he recommends. There is something peculiarly curious, animated, and useful, in his directions to them, how to judge of, and manifest an honourable passion in, and towards the other sex, and in the very accurate and useful distinction which he makes between true and false delicacy. Nothing can be more striking and affecting, nothing more likely to give his paternal advices their desired effect, than the respectful and affectionate manner in which he mentions his lady their mother, and the irreparable loss which he and they sustained by her early death. In short, in this tract, the professor shines with peculiar lustre as a husband and father, and it is admirably adapted to promote domestic happiness.

These letters to his daughters were evidently written under the impression of an early death, which Dr Gregory had reason to apprehend from a constitution subject to the gout, which had begun to show itself at irregular intervals even from the 18th year of his age. His mother, from whom he inherited that disease, died suddenly in 1770, while sitting at table. Dr Gregory had prognosticated for himself a similar death; an event of which, among his friends, he often talked, but had no apprehension of the nearness of its approach. In the beginning of the year 1773, in conversation with his son Dr James Gregory, the latter remarking, that having for the three preceding years had no return of a fit, he might make his account with a pretty fever attack at that season; he received the observation with some degree of anger, as he felt himself then in his usual state of health. The prediction, however, was too true; for having gone to bed on the 9th of February 1773, with no apparent disorder, he was found dead in the morning. His death had been instantaneous, and probably in his sleep; for there was not the smallest discomposure of limb or of feature.—a perfect Euthanasia.

Dr Gregory, in person, was considerably above the middle size. His frame of body was compacted with symmetry, but not with elegance. His limbs were not active; he stooped somewhat in his gait; and his countenance, from a fulness of feature and a heaviness of eye, gave no external indication of superior power of mind or abilities. It was otherwise when engaged in conversation. His features then became animated, and his eye most expressive. He had a warmth of tone and of gesture which gave a pleasing interest to every thing which he uttered: But, united with this animation, there was in him a gentleness and simplicity of manner, which, with little attention to the exterior and regulated forms of politeness, was more engaging than the most finished address. His conversation flowed with ease; and, when in company with literary men, without affecting a display of knowledge, he was liberal of the stores of his mind. He possessed a large share of the social and benevolent affections, which, in the exercise of his profession, manifested themselves in many names, but important, attentions to those under his care; attentions which, proceeding in him from an extended principle of humanity, were not squared to the circumstances or rank of the patient, but ever bestowed most liberally where they were most requisite. In the care of his pupils, he was not satisfied with a faithful discharge of his public duties. To many of these strangers in the country, and far removed from all who had a natural interest in their concerns, it was matter of no small importance to enjoy the acquaintance and countenance of one so universally respected and esteemed.