Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/102

Gregory astronomers in determining the moon's motions. The discussion in the preface, in which the doctrine of gravitation was brought into credit on the score of its antiquity, likewise emanated from Newton. The materials for it were found in his handwriting among Gregory's papers (Edinburgh Phil. Trans. xii. 64). Flamsteed complained that Gregory ‘had two or three flings at him,’ the chief cause of offence being the doubt thrown on the reality of his supposed parallax for the pole-star (, Flamsteed, p. 203; Astr. Elementa, p. 275). His hostility was not soothed by Gregory's nomination, in 1704, as one of the committee charged by Prince George with the inspection and printing of the Greenwich observations.

In pursuance of Dr. Bernard's scheme for printing the works of ancient mathematicians, Gregory brought out in 1703, through the University Press, a splendid edition in Greek and Latin, accompanied by an elaborate preface, of all the writings attributed, with any show of authority, to Euclid. He next undertook, with Halley, a joint edition of Apollonius, which, however, he did not live to complete. He was chosen in 1705 an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and took his seat at the board on 4 Oct. In 1708 he was attacked with consumption, and repaired to Bath for the waters. On his return to London, accompanied by his wife, he was stopped by an accession of illness at Maidenhead in Berkshire, and, hoping to continue his journey next morning, sent to Windsor for his friend Dr. Arbuthnot, who found him at the last extremity. He died on 10 Oct. 1708, at the Greyhound Inn, and was buried in the churchyard of Maidenhead. His widow erected a marble monument to him in St. Mary's Church, Oxford. At the time of his death his three sons lay sick and his only daughter dead of small-pox in London. His eldest son David (1696-1767) [q. v.] was afterwards dean of Christ Church.

Gregory appears to have been of an amiable disposition, and was much regretted by his friends. He was a skilful mathematician, but owed his reputation mainly to his promptitude and zeal in adopting the Newtonian philosophy. Flamsteed's description of him as a ‘closet astronomer’ is not inapt. His only recorded observation is of the partial eclipse of the sun on 13 Sept. 1699 (Phil. Trans. xxi. 330). He left manuscript treatises on fluxions, trigonometry, mechanics, and hydrostatics. A tract, ‘De Motu,’ was printed posthumously (in Eames and Martyn's ‘Abridg. Phil. Trans.’ vi. 275, 1734), and a transcript of his ‘Notæ in Isaaci Newtoni Principia Philosophica,’ in three hundred closely written quarto pages, is preserved in the library of the university of Edinburgh. Composed about 1693, it is said at Newton's request, these laborious annotations were submitted to Huygens for his opinion with unknown result. A proposal for printing them, set on foot at Oxford in 1714, fell through (, Corresp. of Scientific Men, i. 264). Their compilation suggested Gregory's ‘Astronomy.’ Of this work English editions appeared in 1713 and 1726, and a reprint, revised by C. Huart, at Geneva, in 1726. A treatise embodying Gregory's mathematical lectures was published in an English translation by Maclaurin as ‘A Treatise of Practical Geometry,’ Edinburgh, 1745. Its usefulness as a university text-book carried it into several editions, the ninth appearing in 1780. The following papers were communicated by Gregory to the Royal Society: ‘Solutio Problematis Florentini’ (‘Phil. Trans.’ xviii. 25); ‘Refutations of a charge of Plagiarism against James Gregory’ (ib. p. 233, xxv. 2336); ‘Catenaria’ (ib. xix. 637, and ‘Miscellanea Curiosa,’ vol. ii. 1706), containing demonstrations of various properties of the catenary curve, with the suggestion that its inversion gave the true form of the arch; ‘Responsio ad Animadversionem ad Davidis Gregorii Catenariam’ (‘Phil. Trans.’ xxi. 419, and ‘Acta Erudit.’ 1700, p. 301); ‘De Orbita Cassiniana’ (‘Phil. Trans.’ xxiv. 1704).

[Biog. Brit. iv. 1757; Sir Alexander Grant's Story of the University of Edinburgh, ii. 296; General Dict. v. 1737; Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 394; Irving's Lives of Scottish Writers, ii. 239; Letters written by Eminent Persons, i. 176, 1813; Hutton's Mathematical Dict. (1815); Delambre's Hist. de l'Astr. au XVIII e Siècle, p. 60; Bailly's Hist. de l'Astr. Moderne, ii. 632, 655; Marie's Hist. des Sciences, vii. 148; Weidler's Hist. Astronomiæ, p. 580; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Notes and Queries, 7th ser., iii. 147; Works of Dr. John Gregory, i. 12, 1788; Rigaud MSS. in Bodleian Library.]  GREGORY, DAVID (1627–1720), inventor, son of the Rev. John Gregory, parish minister of Drumoak, on the Kincardineshire border, and elder brother of James Gregory (1638-1675) [q. v.], was born in 1627. He was apprenticed by his father to a mercantile house in Holland. He returned to his native country in 1655, and succeeded, on the death of an elder brother, to the estate of Kinardie, some forty miles north of Aberdeen. Here he resided for many years, and was the father of no less than thirty-two children by two wives. Three of his sons, David (1661-1708) [q. v.], Charles, and James, were good mathematicians. A daughter was the mother of