JAMES GREGORIE, 1666–1742; CHARLES GREGORIE, 1681–1754; DAVID GREGORIE,
1712–1765
‘The City of the Scarlet Gown’—ANDREW LANG.
At Kinairdy on the 29th of April 1666 a fifth son was born to David
Gregorie. This was James, of whom probably because he was only one among
many, there is no individual record till his name occurs in the list of
the graduates in Arts in the Edinburgh University in May 1685. The
likelihood is that his early education was given him by his father, who,
notwithstanding his work as an amateur physician, found time to
superintend the studies of his children. Little is known of their
college friends, but Archibald Pitcairne, who afterwards became the
Professor of Medicine, first in Edinburgh and then in Leyden, was
constantly with them, and many happy vacations spent at Kinairdy were
made merrier by his society.
Shortly after James Gregorie graduated, and when he was certainly not
more than twenty, he was appointed to the Chair of Philosophy in St
Andrews. In his teaching he was able and thorough, if not brilliant.
Like his elder brother, he was much in advance of his age, and like him
too was giving expression to the Newtonian Philosophy before it had been
‘as much as heard of’ in Cambridge. There is extant a thesis by this
Professor James Gregorie dedicated to Viscount Tarbat, in which after a
list of scholars, candidates for the degree of A.M., there follow
twenty-five propositions, most of which are a compendium of Newton’s
_Principia_. The other three relate to Logic, and the abuse of it in the
Aristotelian and Cartesian Philosophy. His definition of logic is ‘the
art of making a proper use of things granted in order to find what is
sought,’ This was published in 1690.
Professor Gregorie occupied the Chair of Philosophy at St Andrews until
the Revolution, but then his love for the discrowned king compelled him
to resign. He could not bring himself to take the oath of allegiance to
William and Mary, and thus for a few years he was without any settled
work. Happily for him, however, David his elder brother was in 1692, by
the influence of Sir Isaac Newton, made Savilian Professor of Astronomy
at Oxford, thus leaving a vacancy in the Chair of Mathematics at
Edinburgh. He, too, had been somewhat under a cloud because of his love
for the Stuarts, and although his greatness had prevented the party
which was in power from ejecting him from his post, yet his life had
been made sufficiently uncomfortable for him.
But now things were changed. Feeling was no longer hot and bitter, and
James succeeded to his chair in 1692, with a prospect of a long and
quiet tenure of it. At the time of his election the College revenues
were low, and he had to accept the chair on a diminished salary of nine
hundred merks, or £50 sterling, in addition to the students’ fees. In
the end Gregorie certainly got his money’s worth out of the university,
for he retired at fifty-nine, owing to age and infirmity, and then lived
for seventeen years, during which time Colin Maclaurin, who had been
made joint-professor with him, got no salary. His case was indeed a
piteous one, and Sir Isaac Newton made him a yearly allowance of £20,
towards providing for him, ‘till Mr Gregorie’s place became void.’ The
entries in the Records of Marischal College, Aberdeen, concerning
Maclaurin’s conduct there, or rather not there, are quaint.
‘_December 23, 1724._—On consideration that M’Laurine has been abroad
and not attended to his charge for near thir three years the Council
appoint Mr Daniel Gordon, one of the regents “who had formerly taught
Mathematicks at the University of St Andrews” to teach the class during
the current session.’
‘_January 20, 1725._—M’Laurine having returned a Committee is appointed
to confer with him anent: 1st, his going away without Liberty from the
Counsell. 2nd, His being so long absent from his charge.’
‘_April 27, 1725._—M’Laurine appears before the Council, expresses
regret, and is reponed.’
‘_January 12, 1726._—The Council, learning “by the Publict News Prints”
that M’Laurine has been admitted conjunct professor with Mr James
Gregorie in the University of Edinburgh, declare his office vacant.’
It is a question whether there were not times when Colin Maclaurin
thought that the safe salary which he would have enjoyed at Marischal
College might have been preferable to his Edinburgh post,
notwithstanding the greater intercourse which he now had with the world
of science, but if so, there was no turning back.
Professor Gregorie married on the 4th September 1698, Barbara, a
daughter of Charles Oliphant of Langton, and a sister of his brother
David’s wife. A great gloom was cast upon their home life by the early
death of one of his daughters. She had an unhappy love affair, and is
said to have died of a broken heart. Whether this was so or not, her
story furnished the subject of Mallet’s ballad, ‘William and Margaret.’
‘Twas at the silent solemn hour,
When night and morning meet;
In glided Margaret’s grimly ghost,
And stood at William’s feet.
Her face was like an April morn,
Clad in a wintry cloud:
And clay cold was her lily hand
That held her sable shroud.
So shall the fairest face appear
When youth and years are flown,
Such is the robe that kings must wear
When death has reft their crown.
Her bloom was like the springing flower
That sips the silver dew,
The rose was budded in her cheek,
Just opening to the view.
But love had, like the canker worm,
Consumed her early prime:
The rose grew pale, and left her cheek;
She died before her time.
Awake, she cried, thy true love calls,
Come from her midnight grave;
Now let thy pity hear the maid
Thy love refused to save.
This is the dumb and dreary hour
When injured ghosts complain;
Now yawning graves give up their dead
To haunt the faithless swain.
Bethink thee, William, of thy fault,
Thy pledge and broken oath;
And give me back my maiden vow,
And give me back my troth.
Why did you promise love to me
And not that promise keep?
Why did you swear mine eyes were bright
Yet leave those eyes to weep?
How could you say my face was fair
And yet that face forsake?
How could you win my virgin heart
Yet leave that heart to break?
Why did you say my lip was sweet
And made the scarlet pale?
And why did I, young witless maid,
Believe the flattering tale?
That face alas no more is fair,
These lips no longer red;
Dark are my eyes, now closed in death,
And every charm is fled.
The hungry worm my sister is;
This winding sheet I wear;
And cold and weary lasts our night
Till that last morn appear.
But hark the cock has warned me hence,
A long and last adieu!
Come see, false man, how low she lies
Who dy’d for love of you.
The lark sung loud, the morning smiled
With beams of rosy red:
Pale William shook in every limb
And raving left his bed.
He hyed him to the fatal place,
Where Margaret’s body lay;
And stretched him on the grass green turf
That wrapt her breathless clay.
And thrice he called on Margaret’s name
And thrice he wept full sore,
Then laid his cheek to her cold grave
And word spake never more.’
The author of this poem was not only a M’Gregor, but like the Gregories,
a M’Gregor of Roro, and though he had changed his name, as did so many
members of that unfortunate clan, the tradition was always kept up in
his family.
Charles Gregorie, a half brother of Professor James, who was for a time
Snell Exhibitioner at Balliol, was created by Queen Anne in 1707
Professor of Mathematics at St Andrews, which chair he held for
thirty-two years until such time as his son could be appointed in his
stead. He was quiet, studious, and able, but little is known of him.
David Gregorie, who succeeded him, does not bear quite so gentle a
character, but he was a much abler man and one who could make his
personality felt wherever he went.
After his own schooldays were over, he became tutor to the sons of the
Duke of Gordon with whom he was connected through his grandmother. In
this way he passed several years of his life before he was appointed to
the Mathematical Chair. As a professor he was very popular, and if he
tried to extend his influence beyond his class-room, he meant nothing
but kindness. This was not always understood. One of his students wrote
an autobiography, in which he described the ardour with which Mr
Gregorie insisted that he should attend the services at the
church—ardour for which Mr. Stockdale was not grateful and to requite
which he put the professor’s name into his ‘immortal’ autobiography as
that of a bigot, who had compelled him to attend the kirk. Thomas Reid,
when studying his cousin’s character and especially his whiggery and
Presbyterianism, so curiously unlike the rest of his family, remembered
that he, like himself, was descended from the second wife of David
Gregorie of Kinairdy, and had inherited her principles both in religion
and politics.
There is another incident in his life more likely to recall those of his
connections who bore the name of M’Gregor, and the record of it seems
odd enough and old-world enough in our eyes. The report is that of a
lawsuit which the professor had against Mr Wemyss of Lathockar.
Gregorie, it seems, who loved sport, was ‘hunting for partridges’ over
the broad meadowlands of Leuchars. He was accompanied by a man called
Baird, who carried a second gun for Professor Gregorie. Suddenly Mr
Wemyss sprang upon this man and seizing his gun refused to return it.
The professor was furious—Baird was carrying a second gun for him, he
was no common fowler, no higgler from whom a gun could rightly be taken;
but Mr Wemyss was obdurate and went away with the gun, and nine-tenths
of the law in his favour. And now there was no possible remedy but the
courts, and in due course, the matter came up before the Sheriff.
Gregorie claimed the restitution of his gun, and damages for the way in
which he had been treated. As regards his first request, his claim was
granted, but on the second point the judgment was not so favourable
for—is it possible?—there was a doubt in the Sheriffs mind as to whether
Gregorie himself had a right to be shooting over the grounds of
Leuchars. It had ceased to be a question only concerning Baird, and in
the end, the Professor of Mathematics in St Andrew’s University was
refused damages on the ground that he himself was poaching![4] The owner
of Leuchars was a minor, and as one of his tutors Professor Gregorie had
never doubted his right to shoot over the estate, but he went back to St
Andrew’s with new ideas on the limitations of his privilege.
Footnote 4:
Robert Fergusson the poet, wrote a poem in the Scots dialect, on the
death of this Professor David Gregorie.
His life ended in 1765, when he was only fifty-three. He published one
book, which was a Compendium of Algebra—an excellent text-book, said
Thomas Reid his cousin, and then added a description of the professor
which if not very interesting is still a portrait, drawn from life: ‘a
well-bred, sensible gentleman, and much esteemed as a laborious and
excellent teacher.’