JAMES GREGORIE, 1638–1675
‘He learned the art
In Padua far beyond the sea.’
—SCOTT, _Lay_ 1, xi.
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. He studied at
Marischal College, and took his degree (laureated is the pleasant
Scottish word) along with Gilbert Burnet, the readable if imaginative
historian, with whom likely enough he did not find much in common,
representing as they almost did fact and fancy. Now their portraits hang
side by side in the Picture Gallery—Gregorie’s grey and grave and stern,
with an indication of what he was in the mathematical globe by his
side—Burnet’s less severe, satisfied with himself, and a most prosperous
portrait.
After the graduation James Gregorie gave himself up to his studies, and
before he was twenty-four made his great discovery of the Reflecting
Telescope. It was not a chance discovery, for indeed he only described,
and never saw put together, the telescope which bears his name. Anyone
can see them nowadays, for they are still used, and the beautiful one
set up by James Short in Edinburgh, is as clear as the day it was made,
and is not used now, only because a commoner one can do the work which
it did for so many years in the Royal Observatory. To the uninitiated it
has a great merit, for things present themselves through it as they
appear to the naked eye, and not upside down as is the case with most of
the great telescopes.
In 1663, his book entitled _Optica Promota_, which contained a
description of his telescope, was published in London, and thither
Gregorie went, hoping that by the assistance of a practical workman he
might realise his ideal.
His book had been much read by mathematicians, and amongst others by
John Collins, the Secretary to the Royal Society. We can picture then
the mutual pleasure with which these two men met. It was in an alehouse,
where possibly the jolly tavern keeper took the Aberdonian through the
fumes of his stuffy parlour, and presented him to Master Collins as a
likely friend for him; anyway, this was the beginning of a life-long
friendship, and Collins, who had realised at once what a possibility lay
in the proposed reflecting telescope, determined to have a glass made on
the principles which Gregorie had suggested in his book. With this
object in view, he took his new Scottish friend to the most skilled
glass-grinder in London, but, alas! in vain. Mr Reeves could not
overcome the difficulty of obtaining conoidal reflectors, but to the
great mathematicians of that day, and it was a day of giants, the
discovery was magnificent, and from the hands of astronomy’s master
craftsman, the reflecting telescope emerged in 1668 in a more beautiful
form, as Newton’s telescope.
Before Gregorie’s time, the telescopes in England were many of them
immensely long, going up even to three hundred feet, and at this length
they were hardly available for scanning the heavens. The new reflector
brought the size down to six or nine feet, and the idea was so
ingenious, that it made Gregorie famous, and what was more, opened the
door for him to friendship with Newton and Collins, to acknowledgment as
an original worker by Huygens, and awakened in the Father of the
Catholic Church an apprehension that one Gregorie, a Scot and a heretic,
might come to deserve the spiritual blight which he is empowered to give
in placing a book on the Index! It was not so very long before, that
Galileo—an earlier maker of telescopes—had been accused by the learned
scribes and pharisees of his day, of magic. ‘Oh, my dear Kepler,’ says
Galileo to his brother astronomer in one of his most amusing letters,
‘how I wish that we could have one hearty laugh together! Here at Padua
is the principal professor of philosophy, whom I have repeatedly and
earnestly requested to look at the moon and planets through my glass,
which he pertinaciously refuses to do. Why are you not here? What shouts
of laughter we should have at this glorious folly, and to hear the
professor of philosophy in Pisa labouring before the Grand Duke with
logical arguments, as with magical incantations, to charm the new
planets out of the sky!’ It is well that Galileo laughed at this stage
of his life; when he fell into the hands of the Inquisition it became no
laughing matter, and even after he had renounced his views, he was
subjected to many griefs, and to a long incarceration in an Italian
prison.
In the fifty years which intervened between Galileo and James Gregorie,
Louis, the great monarch of France, had taken science under his care, so
the Inquisition was no longer available as a means of preventing the
spread of original thought, and Gregorie, unsuspecting of the pope’s
attitude towards him, went to very Padua itself, and stayed there for
three years.
Padua, with its still colonnades and drowsy population, is visited now,
not in the eager search for learning, but because of the pale frescoes
with which Giotto had gifted it long before Gregorie was there, but in
the seventeenth century, what other attractions drew men thither! Then
such men as Riccioli, Manfredi and De Angelis were drawing the erudite
from far and near to sit at their feet. Such men as Manfredi and De
Angelis, who were they? Alas! they, the great mathematical champions of
their day, have passed into oblivion, and are only remembered now, even
in Padua, by the work of the masons who carved their names on the walls
of the University.
‘In thine halls the lamp of learning
Padua, now no more is burning;
Like a meteor, whose wild way
Is lost over the grave of day,
It gleams betrayed and to betray:
Once remotest nations came
To adore that sacred flame,
When it lit not many a hearth
On this cold and gloomy earth;
Now new fires from Antique light
Spring beneath the wide world’s might:
But their spark lies dead in thee,
Trampled out by tyranny.’
As for Gregorie, he was at variance with Riccioli, De Angelis and
Manfredi, and though we have only negative evidence, we hope that he was
at one with the other great teachers of his time in Italy. _Optica
Promota_ had been much read on the Continent, and there the suggestion
which he made that the solar parallax might be determined by the transit
of Venus and Mercury had been accepted, and till a few years ago it was
the method employed in finding out the distance of the sun. But after
all, the most beautiful piece of Gregorie’s work was his telescope. ‘It
consists of a parabolic concave speculum with a hole in its centre,
having near its focus a small elliptic concave speculum. The image
formed by the large parabolic speculum is received by the small
elliptical one, and reflected through the aperture in the former upon a
lens which magnifies it.’
In Padua his work took a more purely mathematical turn, and resulted in
a book ‘pursuing a hint suggested by his own thoughts,’ of which he had
only a few copies printed. It was entitled _Vera Circuli et Hyperboles
Quadratura_, and Montucla in writing of it says that the title is
misleading, and that the author does not claim, except approximately,
through his infinite converging series to find the square of a circle or
hyperbola. Collins, to whom a copy was sent, read part of it before the
Royal Society. Lord Brouncker and Dr Wallis were enthusiastic in its
praise, and under such encouragement Gregorie published it along with
some fresh matter under the title of _Geometriae Pars Universalis
inservieus Quantitatum Curvarum Transmutationi et Mensurae_. The book
came out in Padua with the permission of the State of Venice, and was a
great success. Before its publication the Royal Society showed their
appreciation of it by making Gregorie a Fellow.
This was in January 1668; in March he was still in Padua, but in all the
confusion of departure, and not long after he returned to Scotland, and
back to his much loved Aberdeenshire, where happiness was awaiting him
on all sides. There was Kinairdy to visit with its many charms, and
there was Aberdeen, and at Elrick there was a cousin who was after all,
it is easy to guess, the end of his journey. This was Mary Burnet, the
widow of John Burnet, who to his great joy consented to become his wife,
and was married to him in 1669.
The astronomer found love-making dreadfully time-consuming, and vaguely
regretted it. You see, it was apt to interrupt his correspondence with
Huygens and Halley, with Newton and Collins, with Dr Wallis and Lord
Brouncker. Here is a pathetic letter from him written in the early part
of the year to one of his mathematical correspondents—‘I have several
things in my head as yet only committed to memory, neither can I dispose
of myself to write them in order and method till I have my mind free
from other cares.’
His wife was only twenty-three, although this was her second marriage,
and even when after Mr Gregorie’s death she married Mr Ædis, she was
still young and very beautiful. A rare piece of her work remains in the
tapestries which adorn the Magistrates’ Gallery in St Nicholas Church in
Aberdeen. Susannah and Jephtha’s daughter were her subjects, and there
they are still, looking out of their panels, from the midst of their
beautiful blue and green landscapes, with the rigid uncertainty of
tapestry portraits. Bailie Burnet would have been proud if he could have
foreseen what a combination of ecclesiastical and civic honour was to
fall to his wife’s needlework.
Mrs Gregorie’s father, George Jameson the artist, drew the pictures for
her. Walpole called him the ‘Van Dyck of Scotland,’ though it is
difficult to know why, as there is really no resemblance in their work,
but at least Jameson and Van Dyck were friends in Rubens’ studio, and
the kindly appreciation of his fellow-citizens has remembered and
repeated the phrase.
In 1670, James Gregorie was appointed to the Chair of Mathematics in St
Andrews, where he had a successful if sometimes vexed life. His duties
were to deliver two lectures a week, and to answer any mathematical
questions that might be set before him. ‘I am now much taken up,’ he
writes in May, 1671, ‘and have been so all this winter by-past, both
with my public lectures, which I have twice a week, and resolving
doubts, which some gentlemen and scholars propose to me. This I must
comply with, nevertheless that I am often troubled with great
impertinences, all persons here being ignorant of these things to
admiration. These things do so hinder me, that I have but little time to
spend on these studies my genius leads me to.’
He lived near the beautiful cathedral and almost under the shadow of St
Regulus, and there his name is still remembered in Gregorie’s Lane and
Gregorie’s Place. He worked in the long, many-windowed library, where
the clock which he used is still at work, and where it has been keeping
time these two hundred years, since Huygens, who invented the use of the
pendulum in clocks, and Gregorie himself were laid at rest.
Huygens and Gregorie had a long feud about his Paduan book. Its faults
as the Dutchman thought were lack of ‘distinguished perspicuity’ and
intricacy in its invention. But Huygens must have lived to regret his
criticisms, however well founded they were, for with a sudden burst of
the M’Gregor spirit, Professor James sent forth a volley of answers, his
official statements through the medium of the Philosophical
Transactions, and his unofficial through his many letters. Neither his
great opponent, nor his great opponent’s allies were spared. ‘I am not
yet so much a Christian as to help those who hurt me. I do not know
(neither do I desire to know) who calleth in that preface, Hugenius his
animadversions of November 12th 1668, judicious, but I would earnestly
desire that he would particularize (if he be not an ignorant) in what my
answer, which is contradictory to Hugenius his animadversions is faulty;
for in geometrical matters, if anything be judicious its contradictory
must be nonsense. I do not know what need there was for an apology for
inserting my answer, but to compliment Hugenius, and violently (if it be
possible) to bear down the truth. I imagined such actions below the
meanest member of the Royal Society, however, I hope I may have
permission to call to an account in print the penners of that Preface.’
The account was never called for, because Newton in the meantime, gave
the simpler solution, which Gregorie had been declaring an
impossibility, but it must be remembered that Gregorie’s method although
almost impossible to any but the most clear mathematical mind, was easy
to him and was correct as far as it went. Can anyone help loving
Huygens, even though they know no more of him than what is seen in his
intercourse with Gregorie? What graciousness and kindness was returned
in exchange for the thunderous treatment he received! Sick, as he
thought he was unto death, he suggested Gregorie as a fit successor to
him in the favour of Louis XIV., and we find his father, who was
secretary to the Prince of Orange and a poet—the poet of the
garden—similarly occupied, trying to influence the great folk with whom
he came in contact to further Gregorie’s interests. But in spite of the
recommendation of the Académie des Sciences, the Royal Society, and such
friends as he had at court, Gregorie never received any Royal patronage;
the want of which he took very calmly and with a great deal of broad
good sense, never having expected any other result. ‘I have had
sufficient experience in the uncertainty of things of that nature before
now, which maketh me since I came to Scotland, how mean and despicable
so ever my condition be, to rest contented and satisfy myself with that,
that I am at home in a settled condition by which I can live. I have
known many learned men far above me upon every account with whom I would
not change my condition.’
In 1669 Gregorie’s books were suppressed in Italy, which came as a shock
to him, and was all the more grievous because it deprived him of many of
his most interested readers—and controversialists! Scotland, however,
supplied the deficiency wonderfully well. There was a professor in
Glasgow called George Sinclair, a mathematician, and a demonologist of
great repute, who wrote a book on Hydrostatics. It was quite clever, and
may have been more interesting to the general reader than books on
Hydrostatics usually are, because of an appendix in which some strange
things were included, amongst others, A Short History of Coal and the
Story of the Devil of Glenluce. The humour of the combination was too
much for Gregorie, and under the name of Patrick Mathers, Arch-Bedal to
the University of St. Andrews, he wrote an answer to the scientific part
of the Hydrostatics, which he called ‘The Great and New Art of Weighing
Vanity.’ Witty, scurrilous, easily written and easily read, the book was
a great source of merriment both to Gregorie and his colleagues at St.
Andrews, and it raised a perfect hurricane in Glasgow. The very name was
an impertinent play on the title of his antagonist’s former book _Ars
nova et Magna_ and the fact that Professor Sinclair was no mean
adversary added zest to the battle, which continued many days. But
Professor Sinclair had prepared an ill reception for his work by the
edict which he had had printed and sent abroad to persuade people to
order copies of it:—
‘Forasmuch as there is a Book of Natural and Experimental Philosophy in
English, to be printed within these four months, or thereabouts; wherein
are contained many excellent and new purposes: As first, Thirty
Theorems, the most part whereof were never so much as heard of before:’
(Alas! poor professor what a beginning! And is the ending any better!)
‘and an excellent way for knowing, by the eye, the Sun or Moon’s motion
in a second of time, which is the 3600 part of an hour, and many others
of different kinds, useful and pleasant. These are therefore to give
notice to all ingenious persons, who are lovers of Learning, that if
they shall be pleased to advance Gedeon Shaw, Stationer at the foot of
the Ladies Steps, three pounds Scots, for defraying the present charges
of the said Book, they shall have from him, betwixt the date hereof and
April next to come, one of the Copies: And for their further security in
the interim the Author’s obligation for performing the same.’
‘Which so exposed to my masters the vanity of that confident man, that
they were forced plainly to let him know their mind,’ wrote the
Arch-Bedal, and some of his own sentiments were expressed in a letter
which he afterwards quoted in the Preface to his book _The Great and New
Art_ ‘Sir,—I admire exceedingly the forwardness of your humor (I will
call it no worse) in your last to ——: he is a person not concerned in
you or in your books, neither will he ignorantly commend anything, as it
seems ye expected he should have done, when ye sent him these papers. Ye
might have known long ago that he had no veneration for what ye had
formerly published, for he made no secret of his mind, when he was put
to it. Ye may mistake him, if ye think that any by-end will cause him
speak what he thinks not: nevertheless he delivered your commission, and
was willing to be unconcerned, expecting their answer. They pressed him
to know his judgment of your last piece: he told ingenuously the truth,
that there was none of them had less esteem for it than himself. He
hopes you are so much a Christian, that ye will not be offended with him
for speaking what he thought when he had a call to it; and yet albeit ye
seem to favour him more than others, he hath ground to look upon himself
as one of the sophistical rabble, for they only are such who condemn
anything ye do, the rest of the University continuing always learned
persons. It is to no purpose to apologize for themselves, ye take all
for granted, which ye have heard: I shall not put you to the pains of
proving it; yet it seems ye would hardly have believed it so easily, had
not your conscience told you, that they had some reason for their
judgement, which really was this following: That they see nothing in
your last piece, new and great (albeit it be _Ars nova et Magna_) save
errors and nonsense; as your demonstrations of the pendulum, your _Nihil
spatiale_, your _Gravitas circularis_, and _horizontalis_, your question
“Whether or no a body may be condensed in a point?” etc., too many to
fill several letters: for ye must not call experiments new inventions,
otherwise ye are making new inventions every day, neither must ye call
different explications new inventions, else the same thing might be
invented by almost every Writer. I admire how ye question the R.
Society; for I desire to know one point of doctrine, which ye or they
either pretend to, concerning the weight of the air, the spring of it,
or anything else in your book, save mistakes, which was not received by
all mathematicians, and the most learned of Philosophers many years
before any of you put pen to paper. Ye have been at much pains to prove
that by experiment, which all the learned already grant, and some have
demonstrat _à priori_ from the principles of Geometry and Staticks, and
many _à posteriori_ from experience if sense may be called a
demonstration: yet ye are the only man who produceth the _Ars Nova et
Magna_ when all others are out of fashion. But more to your
commendation, it seems ye do all these wonders by Magick; for ye have
the ordinair principles of none of these Sciences: Euclid is as much a
stranger as reason in all your Books: and for this _Perque Mathematicos
semper celebrabere fastus_! At last ye come to prove a new doctrine,
which before now was near 2000 years old, with thirty new Theorems which
must not be named because they are of such a tender and delicat
complexion that the very naming of them will make them old. There are
also many other excellent things, which will be all new when they were
but printed yesterday. It is like some of these dayes, we may have an
_Ars Nova et Magna_, to prove that a piece of lead is heavier than so
much cork. I know not wherefore ye undervalue any man, because he hath
not as great esteem for your notions as yourself: Have not we as much
freedom to speak our mind of you, as ye have to write yours of the R.
Society and the University of Glasgow? The greatest hurt ye can do us,
is to make Dromo famulus one of our Principals. I think it not strange
that ye using only demonstrations of sense, should admire the force of
our imagination, in affirming no method of Dyving so good as that of
Melgin. I am sure that the man Dyving for a continual time, if he be not
also of your invention, must breath of the air; and this air must either
be kept close by itself, as in Melgin’s way, or communicat with the air
above. If the latter be your invention, I doubt ye must also have some
Chirurgical invention to apply to your Dyver at his return, if he go to
any great deepness: If the former, it is the same with Melgin’s; and you
cannot neither any man else help it, but in circumstances (which alters
not the method) and perchance to little purpose. As for Archimedes, I am
sure he wanted no necessary requisit to prove the weight of water in its
own Element. I know not what else ye intend to prove: Always I am as
sure that he had two great requisits, which ye want; to wit, Geometry
and a sound head. As to what ye write concerning the imperfection of
Sciences; the scientifical part of Geography is so perfected, that there
is nothing required for the projection, description and situation of a
place, which cannot be done and demonstrat. The scientifical part of
opticks is so perfected, that nothing can be required for the perfection
of sight, which is not demonstrat, albeit men’s hands cannot reach it;
and these being the objects of the fore-said Sciences, your authority
shall not persuade me that it is altogether improper to call them
perfect. In the Hydrostaticks, it were no hard matter to branch out all
the experiments that can be made into several Classes, of which the
event and reason might perfectly be deduced, as consectaries (I speak
not here of long deductions, as ye seem to rant) to something already
published: if it be noticed but rudely (as ye, not understanding what
niceties of proportion means, must do) only considering Motion and Rest:
And I believe there is none ignorant of this who understands what is
written in this Science. Upon this account writing to you, I might call
it perfect, albeit I know there are many things relating to the
proportion and acceleration of the motions of fluids, which are yet
unknown, and may perchance still be. Ye shal not think that I speak of
you without ground; (for in your _Ars Magna et Nova_, ye bring in your
great attempts for a perpetual motion; all which a novice of eight days
standing in Hydrostaticks would laugh at). I do not question that this
age hath many advantages beyond former ages; but I know not any of them,
it is beholden to you for: only I admire your simplicity in this.
Astronomers seek always to have the greatest intervals betwixt
Observations, and ye talk that ye will give an excellent way for
observing the Sun or Moon’s motion for a second of time; that is to say,
as if it were a great matter that there is but a second of time betwixt
your Observations. I wonder ye tell me the eye should be added; for the
invention had been much greater had that been away. I do confess that a
good History of Nature is absolutely the most requisite thing for
learning; but it is not like that you are fit for that purpose, who so
surely believe the miracles of the West, as to put them in print; and
record the simple meridian altitudes of Comets, and that only to halfs
of degrees or little more as worth noticing. However, if ye do this last
part concerning Coal-sinks well, and all the rest be but an _Ars Magna
et Nova_, ye may come to have the repute of being more fit to be a
Collier than a Scholar. Ye might have let alone the precarious
principles and imaginary worldes of Des Cartes, until your new
inventions had made them so: For I must tell you Des Cartes valued the
History of Nature, as much as any experimental Philosopher ever did, and
perfected it more with judicious experiments, than ye will by all
appearance do in ten ages. Ye are exceedingly misinformed, if ye have
heard that any here have prejudice or envy against you; for there is
none here speaks of you but with pity and commiseration: neither heard I
ever of any man who commended you for what he understood. As for your
Latin Sentences, if they be not applied to yourself, I understand them
not; for here we are printing no books, we are not sending tickets
throughout the country to tell the wonders we can do: We are going about
the imployments we are called to, and strive to give a reason for what
we say. Where then are our _Doli et fallaciae, tabulae et testes,
sapientia ad quam putamus nos pervenisse_? etc. In these things ye
publish, ye know there is no Sophistry but clear evidence: If ye had
done such great matters in _Universale et ens rationis_, ye might have
had a shift; but here ye must either particularize your inventions, or
otherwise demonstrat yourself derogatory to the credit of the Nation:
For what else is it to confound R. Societies and Universities with _Ars
Magna et Nova_; and yet when ye were put to it in print, to show your
inventions, all ye could say was, that the publisher should have
reflected upon the wisdom of the Creator, etc., so that the Poet said
well of Democritus, etc., of which I understand not the sense, except ye
make yourself the summus vir, and us all the Verveces. I suppose this
may be the great credit that ye say ye have labored to gain to your
nation; to wit to get us all the honrable title of Wedders. No more at
present, but hoping this free and ingenuous Letter shal have a good
effect upon you (for I am half perswaded, that the flattery of scorners
and ignorants, hath brought you to this height of imaginary learning)
and that when ye come to yourself ye will thank me for my pains.
I rest your humble servant.’
* * * * *
To this letter Professor Sinclair in his turn very pertinently remarked,
that they should not criticise his book till they had seen it, and the
St Andrews’ teachers were convinced. But unfortunately in the address to
the reader with which Professor Sinclair’s _Hydrostaticks_ commences, he
gave expression to his wounded feelings.
‘When this Book was first committed to the press, I sent an intimation
thereof to some of my friends, for their encouragement to it, a practice
now common, and commendable which hath not wanted a considerable
success, as witness the respect of many worthy persons, to whom I am
oblidged. But there is a generation, that rather than they will
encourage any new invention, set themselves by all means to detract from
it and the authors of it; so grieved are they, that ought of this kind
should fall into the hands of any, but their own. And therefore if the
Author shall give but the title of New to his invention, though never so
deservedly, they fly presently in his throat, like so many Wild-Catts,
studying either to ridicule his work altogether—a trade that usually,
the person of weakest abilities, and most empty heads, are better at,
than learned men; like those schollars, who being nimble in putting
tricks, and impostures upon their Condisciples, were dolts, as to their
lesson, or else fall upon it with such snarling and carping as discover
neither ingenuity, nor ingeniousness, but a sore sickness called,
_Envy_.’
* * * * *
Now, indeed, now was the Arch-Bedal justified, and so in hot haste he
wrote that stinging book, which purported to be by Patrick Mathers (the
Arch-Bedal to the University of St Andrews), but was really by Gregorie,
a fact which its erudition must have made clear to Sinclair, even before
that kind person, the mutual friend, had confided the fact to him.
The curious thing was that with all his desire to heap ridicule upon his
adversary, Gregorie only touched upon what would naturally now appear
the most vulnerable point, the passage about the Devil of Glenluce.
In the meantime the clear air of St Andrews was daily suggesting to him
how desirable a place it was in which to teach Astronomy. At night, when
he walked over the links, the stars were so clear above him, and the
hills so inconsiderable on the horizon, that he felt that nowhere in
Scotland was there a site more suitable for an observatory. His idea was
cordially agreed to by the University, and sufficient money had been
collected by 1673 to admit of the authorities commencing their
arrangements. Accordingly Gregorie was commissioned to proceed to the
selection of the instruments needed for the carrying out of his plan.
* * * * *
‘Commission, University of St Andrews, to Mr James Gregorie, Professor
of Mathematics.
‘_10th June 1673._
‘Be it knowen to all men be these presents, Us, Rector, Principals,
Doctors, and Professors of the University of St Andrews, under
subscribing: For as much as we have formerly taken to our serious
consideration the great detriment and losse this ancient seminary hath
been at in times past, and doeth yet sustain by the want of such proper
and necessary instruments and utensils as may serve and conduce for the
better, more solemn and famous profession, teaching and improving of
Naturall Philosophy and the mathematical sciences, and especially for
making such observation on the Heavens and other bodys of this Universe
(as easily may be by such helps, with the great advantage of the pure
air and other accommodation of this place) whereby we may be enabled to
keep correspondence with learned and inquisitive persones in solide
philosophy everywhere, for the forsaid effect: And having purposed (to
be forthcoming to our duty and the encouragement of others) to set as
effectually as may be about this laudable and necessary work, for
providing the forsaids instruments of all kynds, ane observatory, and
all other accoutrements requisite for the improvement of the forsaid
sciences, the benefite, advantage and delight of youth to be trained up
here, the honour of the Kingdom, the reputation of our benefactors, and
the lustre and splendour of the University: Did therefore commissionat
some of our number to make application unto all persons, whom they knew
to be encouragers of learning, and patrons to the professors thereof,
representing unto them that we were instantly upon the effectuating of
the forsaid designe, And to that end to crave their affections and such
other encouragements for the said work as they please to bestow; And to
report to us their diligence therein, with the names of our benefactors,
to the effect this University may record them, and endeavour to make
such respectfull resentments to them and their posterity, as becomes:
giving them power to do every other thing proper and requisit in the
said affair; They being always answerable and accountable to us anent
the premises. And whereas this our laudable designe hath already met
with such considerable encouragement from persons of all ranks, that we
have ordered Mr James Gregorie, professor of the Mathematical Sciences
here to goe to London, and there to provide so far as the money already
received from our Benefactors will reach, such instruments and utensils
as he with advice of other skilful persons shall judge most necessary
and usefull for the above mentioned design: Like as be these presents we
the under subscribers all with one consent constitute the said Mr James
our factor for the effect forsaid, Giving and granting him our full
power and ample commission for transacting and buying the forsaid
instruments in so far as the money forsaid will extend, or as he shall
be further furnished by us upon what is to come upon our letters and
precepts for that effect: Obliging ourselves to ratifye and approve what
the said Mr James should doe in this our commission directed to him by
us during his residence there, and to acquit and relieve him of all
prejudice he may incur and sustain in execution of this our commission,
or any other commission sent by us to him during his residence there:
And to take notice of the fabric and form of the most competent
observatorye that ours here intended may be builded with all its
advantages: And also considering the intended work to be of such moment
and expenss, that we ar not able to accomplish it with the contributions
of these only who have already listed themselves encouragers of it;
Therefore we also by these presents do nominat and constitute the said
Mr James Gregorie our factor and special mandator for making application
unto all whom he knows to be favourers of learning for their concurrence
unto the advancement of the forsd work with full power to do everything
proper and requisit in this affair, as others formerly employed therein
have been impowered by us to do, He being in like manner accountable to
us anent the premisses. As witness these presents, written by William
Sanders, one of our number, clerk for the time, and subscrived with our
hands in the University Hall, on the 10th day of June J. m. vjc. seventy
three years.
D. Will Comrie, _Provost of St Marie’s Colledge_
Ja. Rymer
Edw. Thomson
Ja. Strachane
Jo. Comrie
And. Bruce, _Rector_.
D. Geo. Weemss, _Provost of the Old Colledge_.
D. James Weemss, _Principal of St Leonard’s Colledge_.
Jo. Hay.
Alex^r. Grant.
Alex^r. Skene.
W. Sanders.’
* * * * *
Professor James Gregorie in his search for funds went to Aberdeen, and
there he achieved what was quite the most wonderful success of his
life—he got a church-door collection in all the churches in Aberdeen to
provide for astronomical instruments at St Andrews. Rob Roy need never
have taken to the high hand, if he had a tongue at all as persuasive as
his great cousin!
Here are the Burgh Records for 15th October 1673.[1]
Footnote 1:
Ane collection to be at the Kirk Dores for the Observatorie at Saint
Andrews.
* * * * *
‘_15th Oct. 1673._
‘The said day, Master Alexander Skene, ane of the regents of Saint
Andrewes signifying to the councell that Master James Gregorie,
professor of Mathematics ther, that ther was ane considerable work
intendit in that airt, which before being brought to ane perfectione
woulde stand considerable moneyes and that severall incorporations and
Universities hade contribuit therto, and seeing the said professor was
ane town’s man heir, it was expectit by all concernit, and humblie
desyrit be him, that this burgh wold contribute to the furtherance of
the said work: All which the councell considering, finds it incumbent
upon them not to be wanting for advancement of the said effair in so far
as they are lyable, and therfor appoynts ane collectione to be at the
Kirk dores ... the nixt or subsequent Lord’s day for the forsaid
effect....’
* * * * *
Things were going very smoothly—success was absolutely fawning upon
Gregorie—he was getting money as he wanted it, and the instruments he
had bought were entirely to his mind; but on his return from London,
where he had gone to fulfil his commission, he found everything changed,
and his colleagues, who had once been so kindly to him, had ceased to
regard him as their friend. He was in the curious situation of being
paid by all three colleges, and that in itself would make his position
somewhat difficult, but this difficulty had always existed. The real
cause of dissension was that in his absence the students had been making
popular demonstrations against some of the other teachers, and citing
his lectures as opposed to the theories propounded by them. 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. The attitude of the professors was
not unlike that taken up by the country doctor, who when asked to fill
in a form, certifying one of his patients to be insane, put as evidence
observed by himself, ‘he called me a fool!’
In the midst of all the turmoil came a flattering invitation to James
Gregorie to become Professor of Mathematics in Edinburgh University.
After the treatment he had received this was a most blessed chance and
with great joy he left St Andrews, and came to Edinburgh.
The whole story was written to James Fraser, then at Paris:—
* * * * *
‘MUCH HONOURED SIR,—I received some days ago your very obliging letter,
and not long after your arrival at Paris I had another from you, to
which the truth is I was ashamed to answer, the affairs of the St
Andrews Observatory were in such a bad condition, the reason of which
was the prejudice the masters of the University did take at the
mathematics, because some of their scholars finding their courses and
dictates opposed by what they had studied in the mathematics, did mock
at their masters, and deride some of them publicly. After this the
servants of the college got orders not to wait on me or my observations,
my salary was also kept back from me, and scholars of most eminent rank
were violently kept from me, contrary to their own and their parents’
wills, the masters persuading them that their brains were not able to
endure it. These and many other discouragements oblige me to accept of a
call here to the College of Edinburgh, where my salary is here double,
and my encouragements much greater.’
* * * * *
Gregorie left St Andrews somewhat under a cloud, because, as we have
good reason to suppose, he had been teaching Newton’s Philosophy before
the Kingdom of Fife was quite ready for it, and because, too, his
students had more ardour than wisdom in their minds. But in Edinburgh he
had a great reception. The hall where he gave his inaugural address, in
November 1674, was crowded, and he was given perfect freedom in what he
taught. In his observatory he passed many happy hours, and often at
nights he would take his students to look through the telescope at the
stars, to find out belted Saturn and Jupiter with his satellites, which
was not such a nursery affair then as it is now. These phenomena had
only been discovered fifty years before, for let us remember James
Gregorie lived in the days of Charles the Second, and just missed by a
few years being Samuel Rutherfurd’s fellow-citizen in St Andrews.
The last scene in his life comes all too soon, and before he had been a
year in Edinburgh his place was vacant. On an October evening while he
was showing his students the satellites of Jupiter, a sudden blindness
came on, and within a few days everything was over. He probably died of
Bright’s disease.
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. He was a mathematician for
mathematicians.
There are many of Gregorie’s letters still extant, and for the pure
pleasure of reading one just as he wrote it, this letter written to the
Rev. Coline Campbell is inserted.
* * * * *
‘ST ANDREWS, _1. Jan. 1673_.
‘SIR,—I received your of the 23rd of December last, and am glad to have
the occasion to keep a correspondence with such a knowing person as ye
ar. I have not had leasur at this time to satisfie you in your probleme,
being drawn away all this afternoon with necessarie affairs: but with
the nixt I shall doe my endeavour for I expect not to mak the
calculation considerablie short, seing the nature of the question doeth
not suffice it. Our bedal his book against Mr Sinclair is come out
several weeks ago. No more at present, but being in hast and hoping that
ye will be pleased to continue this new correspondence, I rest,
‘Your humble servant,
‘JAMES GREGORIE.
‘for Mr COLINE CAMPBELL.’
* * * * *
His widow and orphans were granted a pension by Charles II. of £40 a
year Scots in recognition of what Gregorie had done in Scotland. No one
could be found suitable to succeed him in the Chair of Mathematics at
Edinburgh. The authorities waited eight years before they made another
appointment; and when the new professor came, he was also a Gregorie, a
nephew of the late professor. His own son, too, held a chair, but that
was in Aberdeen, and he was a professor of medicine.