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.’