name of a Scottish family, of which many members have attained the highest eminence in various departments of science. The first who thus distinguished himself was David Gregory, son of the minister of Drumoak in Aberdeenshire, and elder brother of the inventor of the reflecting telescope. He is said to have been the first person in Scotland who possessed a barometer; and his curious experiments with this instrument led his ignorant and superstitious neighbours to suspect him of being in league with the devil. He was accordingly tried for witchcraft, but pardoned, as it was proved that he had never exerted his powers except for the good of the sick and poor in his vicinity. His son David, more famous than himself, was born in Aberdeen in 1661, and was educated partly in his native city and partly in Edinburgh. At the early age of twenty-three he became professor of mathematics in the university of the latter town, and was the first who openly taught the Newtonian philosophy in Scotland. In 1691 he was appointed Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford, and held that situation till his death in 1708.

David Gregory's principal works are his *Exercitatio Geometrica de dimensione figurarum*, Edinb., 1684; *Catoptrica et Dioptrica Sphaerica Elementa*, Oxon., 1695; *Astronomia Physica et Geometrica Elementa*, Oxon., 1702. This last is his greatest work, and was highly esteemed by Newton himself, of whose system it is an illustration and a defence. Besides these works we owe to Gregory an excellent edition of Euclid in Greek and Latin; and at the time of his death he was engaged, conjointly with his colleague Halley, in editing the Conics of Apollonius. A treatise of Gregory's on Practical Geometry, which he left in manuscript, was published in 1745 by the celebrated MacLaurin.

Of Gregory's four sons, the eldest, David, became regius professor of modern history at Oxford. He died in 1767, after having been for many years dean of Christ Church College in that university.

Gregory, James (1638–1675), one of the greatest names in modern mathematical and optical science, was the son of the minister of Drumoak in Aberdeenshire. He was born and brought up in the city of Aberdeen, and at an early period manifested a strong inclination and capacity for scientific pursuits. Before completing his twenty-third year he had published his famous treatise *Optica Promota*, in which is explained the principle of the reflecting telescope, which is still called by his name and widely used. After the publication of this work, Gregory lost some precious time in making experiments, and allowed Newton to share with him the glory of perfecting his great invention. In telescopes of moderate size, the original or Gregorian form is still in use; but in those vast instruments adopted by the Herschels the improvements of Newton have been found indispensable. About the year 1665 Gregory went abroad and studied for some years at Padua, where he published his *Vera Circuli et Hyperbola Quadratura*, in which he propounded his method of an infinitely converging series for the areas of the circle and hyperbola. When this treatise was republished in 1668, the author appended to it another, entitled *Geometria pars Universalis*, in which he laid down with great elegance and originality a series of rules for the transmutation of curves, and the measurements of their solids of revolution. These and his other works brought Gregory into correspondence with the leading mathematicians of that day, Newton, Wallis, Halley, and Huygens, with the last of whom he carried on a discussion on the subject of his treatise on the quadrature of the circle and hyperbola. On returning to England, Gregory was elected a member of the Royal Society, and finally became professor of mathematics at St Andrews in 1669. In that same year he married a daughter of the famous painter Jameson, whom Walpole pronounced the "Scottish Van dyke." In 1674 he was transferred to the chair of mathematics in Edinburgh, which, however, he only held for about a year, when in October 1675 he was suddenly struck with blindness, while showing the satellites of the planet Jupiter to some of his students through one of his telescopes, and died a few days after at the early age of 37. James Gregory, according to Dr Hutton in his *Philosophical and Mathematical Dictionary*, was a man of very acute and penetrating genius. His temper was in some degree an irritable one; and, conscious of his merits as a discoverer, he seems to have been jealous of losing any portion of his reputation by the improvements of others on his inventions. He possessed one of the most amiable characters of a true philosopher, that of being content with his position in life. But the most brilliant part of his character is that of his mathematical genius as an inventor, which was of the first order.

Among the other works of Gregory, besides those we have already mentioned, are his *Exercitationes Geometricae*, Lond. 1668; and, it is alleged, *The Great and New Art of Weighing Vanity*, written to ridicule Sinclair, the slanderer of Boyle and Saunders, and published under the name of "Patrick Mathers, Archdeacon of the University of St Andrews." This latter, if it be really Gregory's, which is almost certain, is quite unworthy of its author.

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 married first to Catharine Forbes, daughter of Sir John Forbes of Monymusk, by whom he had six children, most of whom died in infancy; and afterwards to Ann Chalmers, only daughter of the Reverend 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 on the 3d of June 1724. Having lost his father when only in the seventh year of

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1 On obtaining this professorship, he was succeeded in the mathematical chair at Edinburgh by his brother James, likewise an eminent mathematician, who held that office for thirty-three years, and when he retired in 1765 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. In 1767, another brother, Charles, was appointed by Queen Anne professor of mathematics at St Andrews. This office he held with reputation and ability for thirty-two years; and, on his resignation in 1799, was succeeded by his son, who inherited the eminent talents of his family, and died in 1763. Gregory, his age, the care of his education devolved on his grand- father Principal Chalmers, and on his elder brother Dr James Gregory, who, upon the resignation of his father a short time before his death, had been appointed to suc- ceed him in the professorship in King's College. He likewise owed much in his infant years, and indeed 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 his classical education he received at the grammar-school of Aber- deen; and under the eye of his grandfather he com- pleted, in King's College, his studies in the Latin and Greek languages, and in the sciences of ethics, mathe- matics, and natural philosophy. His master in philoso- phy and in mathematics was Thomas Gordon, professor of phi- losophy in 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 into that celebrity for which it has since been so remarkably distinguished. 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 of physic. He heard likewise the prelections of Dr Alston on the materia me- dica and botany, and of Dr Plummer on chemistry. The Medical Society of Edinburgh, instituted for the free dis- cussion of all questions relative to medicine and philoso- phy, 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 compa- nion, was a member of the same institution.

In the year 1745 our author went to Leyden, and at- tended the lectures of Professors Gaubius, Albinius, and Van Royen. Whilst at this university he had the honour of receiving from the King's College of Aberdeen, his alma mater, an unsolicited degree of doctor of medicine; and soon afterwards, on his return from Holland, he was elect- ed professor of philosophy in the same university. In this capacity he read lectures during the years 1747, 1748, and 1749, on mathematics, experimental philosophy, and ethics. In the end of 1749, however, he resigned his pro- fessorship of philosophy, his views being turned chiefly to the practice of physic, with which the duties of this profes- sorship, occupying as they did 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 pro- bably amusement, though to a mind like his certainly not without advantage in the enlargement of ideas, and an in- creased knowledge of mankind.

Some time after his return to Scotland, Dr Gregory married, in 1752, Elizabeth, daughter of William Lord Forbes, a young lady who, to the exterior endowments of great beauty and engaging manners, joined a very supe- rior 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 only for the space of nine years, he enjoyed the highest por- tion of domestic happiness. Of her character it is enough to say, that her husband, in the 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 pre-occupied by his elder brother Dr James Gregory, and others of some note in their pro- fession, our author determined to try his fortune in Lon- don. Thither accordingly he proceeded 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. Amongst these Gregory may be mentioned George Lord Lyttleton, who became his friend and patron. An acquaintance, which had been founded on a striking similarity of manners, tastes, and dispositions, grew up into a firm and permanent friend- ship; and to that nobleman, to whom Dr Gregory was accustomed to communicate all his literary productions, the world is indebted for the publication of the Compa- rative View of the State and Faculties of Man, which made him first known as an author. Dr Gregory like- wise enjoyed the friendship of Edward Montagu and his lady, the celebrated champion of the fame of Shakspeare, against the cavils and calumnies of Voltaire.

In 1754 Dr Gregory was chosen fellow of the Royal Society of London; and as he made daily advances in the public esteem, it is not to be doubted that, had he conti- nued his residence in the metropolis, his professional tal- ents would have found their reward in an extensive prac- tice. But the death of his brother, Dr James Gregory, in November 1755, having occasioned a vacancy in the professorship of medicine 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 he remained until the end of the year 1764, when, urged by a laudable ambition, and presuming on the re- putation he had acquired as affording a reasonable pros- pect 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 medical school as favourable to his views of filling a chair in that university; and this 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 Edin- burgh, Dr Gregory gave lectures on the practice of phy- sic during the years 1767, 1768, and 1769. Afterwards, by agreement with Dr Cullen, professor of the theory of medicine, these two eminent men gave alternate courses on the theory and practice of physic. 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 pre- meditate, 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 under the title of Lectures on the Duties and Qualifica- tions 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 pub- lication, by authorizing an impression from a corrected copy, of which he gave the profits to a favourite pupil. These lectures were first published in 1770, and after- wards in an enlarged and more perfect form in 1772.

In the same year, 1772, Dr Gregory published Ele- Gregory, 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 had 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.

Dr Gregory became early a victim to the gout, which began to show itself at irregular intervals even from the eighteenth year of his age. His mother, from whom he inherited that disease, died suddenly in 1770, whilst sitting at table. Dr Gregory had prognosticated for himself a similar death; an event of which, amongst his friends, he often talked, but had no apprehension of the nearness of its approach. In the beginning of the year 1773, whilst in conversation with his son Dr James Gregory, the latter remarked, that having for the three preceding years had no return of an attack, he might expect a pretty severe shock that season; and he received the observation with some degree of anger, as he felt himself then in his usual state of health. The prediction, however, proved but 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 feature.

Gregory, Dr James, professor of the Practice of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh, and eldest son of the subject of the preceding notice, was born at Aberdeen in the year 1753, and there received the rudiments of his education. He accompanied his father to Edinburgh in 1764; and after going through the usual course of literary studies at Edinburgh, was for a short time a student at Christ Church College, Oxford, of which his relation Dr David Gregory had been dean. It was there probably that he acquired that taste for classical learning, and that admiration for the character of an accomplished classical scholar, which ever afterwards distinguished him. He entered early on the study of medicine at Edinburgh, and was a student in that faculty at the time of his father's sudden death, in February 1773. The extraordinary exertion which he then made to complete his father's course of lectures, was regarded by many of his friends as sufficient indication of his ability to continue and extend the hereditary reputation of his family. He took the degree of doctor of medicine at Edinburgh in 1774, and spent the greater part of the next two years in Holland, France, and Italy. It is worthy of notice, that his most intimate friend and companion on the Continent was Mr A. Macdonald, afterwards lord chief baron of the Court of Exchequer, in London.

After the death of Dr John Gregory, the chair of the Institutes of Medicine (then finally separated from that of the Practice of Medicine, of which Dr Cullen remained professor) was offered to Dr Drummond, who was at that time abroad, and who ultimately declined accepting it. For two winters the class was taught by Dr Duncan, whose appointment, however, was only temporary. In 1776 the chair was again declared vacant, and on the 1st of August of that year Dr Gregory was appointed professor. He began to lecture on the Institutes the next winter session, and in the succeeding year he commenced also the duty of teacher of Clinical Medicine in the Royal Infirmary, and continued to deliver at least one course of clinical lectures annually, for more than twenty years.

From the time of commencing his duties as professor Dr Gregory was continually engaged in medical practice; but his practice amongst the higher ranks of society was not extensive until many of his pupils had been settled in business, and were desirous of availing themselves of his assistance. For the last twenty-five years of his life he was much engaged in consulting practice; and for the last ten he was decidedly at the head of his profession in Scotland. Indeed, the boldness, originality, and strength of his intellect, and the energy and decision of his character, were so strongly marked in his conversation, that wherever his professional character was known, it could hardly fail to inspire general confidence.

In 1778 he published his *Conspectus Medicinae Theoreticae*, as a text-book for his lectures on the Institutes. This work passed through several editions, both during his lifetime and since his death, and has been very generally admired, partly on account of the accurate view which it affords of the state of medical science at the period when it was composed, and partly for the ease, perspicuity, and elegance of its Latinity. The greater part of the work is occupied by the principles of Therapeutics; and as it must be confessed that there has been less improvement since that time in the investigation of the powers of remedies, than of the principles either of Physiology or Pathology, that portion of it may still be studied with advantage by all medical men.

On the illness of Dr Cullen in 1790, he was appointed joint-professor of the Practice of Medicine; he became sole professor on the death of Dr Cullen in the same year; and continued to deliver lectures on that subject, to audiences almost regularly increasing, until his last illness in 1821. He died on the 2d of April of that year.

As a practitioner and teacher of medicine, it may be stated that Dr Gregory was chiefly distinguished by his clear perception, and constant application, of the truth contained in a maxim which he was accustomed to quote from a favourite Greek author: "The best physician is he who can distinguish what he can do from what he cannot do." He distrusted all theories in regard to the intimate nature of diseased actions, as premature and visionary; but he had early and carefully studied the diagnostic and prognostic symptoms, and the various forms of the most important diseases, and the agency of the most powerful remedies; and, without entering into the minutiae of morbid anatomy, he had a clear understanding of the changes of structure to be apprehended from disease in the different internal parts of the body. On these points, and their immediate practical bearing, he fixed all his attention. When he thought that these changes were approaching, and could be arrested by active treatment, he urged the truly effectual remedies with the peculiar energy of his character; restrained only by his strong good sense and ample experience, and despising all parade of nicety, or variety of prescription. When he was satisfied that the nature or the stage of the disease did not admit of effectual cure, his decision of character was equally shown in abstaining from useless interference, and confining his views to the relief of suffering.

As a teacher, he was always strongly impressed with the duty of fixing the attention of his pupils on those points in the history of disease, and in the application of remedies, the knowledge of which he had found by experience to be most practically important, and the ignorance of which he thought practically dangerous. The characteristic symptoms and varieties of inflammatory diseases, and the extent to which the antiphlogistic treatment might be carried in opposing them, were, therefore, subjects on which he dwelt with peculiar earnestness; and in regard to the use of those remedies in such diseases, he had acquired, by long and keen observation, a fact and decision which probably were never surpassed. On the other hand, in regard to those numerous chronic diseases, where remedies are so frequently ineffectual, he was equally zealous in inculcating those means of prevention which he thought most effectual and most attainable; and whilst he was incredulous to the alleged virtue of most medicines in such diseases, Gregory, he omitted no opportunity of illustrating the efficacy of temperance, even of abstinence, of bodily exertion without fatigue, and mental occupation without anxiety, in averting their approach, or even arresting their progress. From these great practical objects of his labours as a teacher, no consideration ever turned him aside. His extensive reading, particularly of the older authors, never led to pedantic displays of learning; his logical acuteness never beguiled him into useless controversies; his fertility of imagination never carried him beyond the simplest and most practical views of the subjects of which he treated.

As a lecturer, he possessed the great advantages of a command of language, which made him almost independent of any written notes, and of a tenacity of memory which enabled him to detail cases, in illustration of his principles, year after year, from the whole range of his experience, merely from having the names of the patients before him, without the slightest inaccuracy or omission. The commanding energy and quickness of intellect which his lectures displayed, the frank and fearless exposition of his opinions which they contained, the classical allusions with which they abounded, and the genuine humour by which they were often enlivened, rendered them peculiarly attractive and interesting, and acquired for him a remarkable ascendancy over the minds of his pupils.

In the practice of the profession he was remarkable for the frankness and candour of his communications with the relations and friends of the sick; and for the zealous and even tender interest, always increasing with the difficulty and danger of the case, which he took in his patients. This made the more impression, as it contrasted with a certain roughness of external manner, and a constitutional hilarity and whimsical humour, which on some occasions, it must be owned, like that of a celebrated fictitious character, made him "not hesitate between his friend and his joke."

His conduct with his professional brethren in consultation was eminently distinguished by candour and liberality, and the total absence of all professional trick. He never attempted to make himself of importance, but was ever ready to give the strongest commendation to the treatment previously pursued, when he thought it judicious; always laying stress on the great and essential points of practice, and never giving an undue importance to favourite nostrums, or remedies of a secondary or frivolous kind. Thus the young practitioner, who was attentive to his duties, and honourable in his conduct, always found in him a zealous friend; those only had to dread coming into collision with him, who were wanting in professional zeal or professional integrity.

Dr Gregory's more intimate friends and connections were strongly attached to him on account of the warmth and steadiness of his attachments, of a generosity of disposition bordering on profusion, and of a high and somewhat aristocratic sense of honour, which made him instinctively shrink from any proceeding liable to the slightest imputation of meanness, selfishness, or duplicity.

He had therefore an utter detestation for all those professional arts by which the favour of the public is sometimes too successfully propitiated; and this was the true origin of various controversies in which he was at different times engaged with his professional brethren, and to which his strong sense of humour, his fondness for logical disputation, and (it must be confessed) a somewhat fickle temper, led him to devote more of his time and attention than their importance deserved. For the interests of the Medical School, and of the medical profession of Edinburgh, the continuance of these disputes was a matter of serious regret; but the feelings which led him to engage in them were too well understood and appreciated, to permit them to occasion him any loss, either of private friendships or of public estimation.

No medical teacher or practitioner of eminence was ever more ready to acknowledge the imperfection of his art, more distrustful of medical theories, or even of the alleged results of medical practice, when not in accordance with his own experience; or more careless of posthumous reputation. But none was ever more solicitous to give, both to his pupils and his patients, the full benefit of those principles of medical science, of the truth and importance of which he was himself convinced; and on this account his professional character had assumed, long before his death, a superiority over most of his contemporaries, of which those who judge of it only from his own contributions to medical science or literature cannot form an adequate conception.

Dr Gregory used to say, that whilst physic had been the business, metaphysics had been the amusement, of his life. Of this predilection we have a highly honourable testimony, in Dr Reid's Dedication to him and to his illustrious friend Mr Dugald Stewart, of his Essays on the Intellectual Powers, published in 1785; and, at a much later period of his life, in the cordial friendship which united him with the late Dr Thomas Brown, and the warm interest which he took in the appointment of that eminent metaphysician to the Chair of Moral Philosophy, on Mr Stewart's resignation of it, and retirement from the University. It is proper to add, however, that on some important metaphysical questions the opinions of Dr Brown were different from those of Dr Gregory, and probably never were the subject of discussion between them.

His own metaphysical and literary works are, A Theory of the Moods of Verbs, published in the Edinburgh Philosophical Transactions for 1787; and his Literary and Philosophical Essays, in two volumes, published in 1792. The main object of the latter work was to explain and defend a new argument on the old controversy as to the liberty or necessity of human actions; and whatever may be thought of the soundness of the argument, no one has ever disputed the acuteness and power of logical reasoning which he displayed in defence of it. It must be admitted, however, that his ideas of metaphysical inquiry were in some respects limited. He regarded metaphysics rather as a field for syllogistic reasoning, than as a subject of inquiry directed to the establishment of general principles by induction; and one of his favourite doctrines, that metaphysics admits of no discoveries, if admitted as literally correct, would almost imply that the study can lead to no useful practical results.

He retained throughout life a fervent admiration for the classical authors, and a severe and somewhat fastidious taste in literature, which was formed on the classical models. Several of the lighter and controversial writings with which he amused himself, particularly his Memorials on certain changes in the arrangements of the Royal Infirmary in 1800 and 1803, exhibit very numerous examples of his ready recollection and happy application of quotations from the classics; and a number of Latin epitaphs and inscriptions of various kinds, which he composed at different periods of his life, attest an accuracy of knowledge of the Latin language, and a purity of taste in Latin composition, which few men have the faculty of retaining throughout a lifetime of incessant professional labour.

Dr Gregory was married in 1782, to Miss Mary Ross; but within a few months after her marriage, this lady, to the extreme regret of all her friends, became decidedly consumptive, and survived only two years. After her death her two sisters continued to reside with their brother-in-law, until they both successively sunk under the same cruel disease. In 1796, he married one of the daughters of the late Mr McLeod of Gramies, by whom he had a large family. His second son devoted himself with zeal and ability to the profession of medicine. He had entered on Gregory practice, had already been placed in several responsible situations in Edinburgh, and distinguished himself by some papers on medical subjects, when he was unfortunately carried off by a fever contracted in the course of his duties in 1832.

(w. p. a.)

Olinthus, LL.D., was born in 1774 at Yaxley in Huntingdonshire. He first acquired distinction through his Treatise on Astronomy, and by his Pantologia, a sort of cyclopedia of the arts and sciences which he edited. In 1802 he was appointed mathematical master; and, some years later, professor, in the Military School at Woolwich, where he remained till 1838, when bad health compelled him to retire. During this long period of time he published a number of works, some of them of considerable value, such as his Elements of Plane and Spherical Trigonometry; Mathematics for Practical Men; Letters on the Evidences of Christianity, &c. His work on Mechanics is a good popular treatise on the subject, and one that has proved very valuable to many artisans whom want of mathematical knowledge has barred from the perusal of more scientific works. Dr Gregory died in 1841.