‘Oct. 16th 1708.
‘Reverend Sir,—You had sooner heard from me, but that my thoughts of late have been very much discompos’d by Severall Melancholy Objects. On Friday ye last week I lost a dear child, of whom I was extremely fond, and all that knew Him excused me for being so. I find all ye Philosophy I have, little enough to make me easie on this sad Occasion. The Images do at present return thick upon Me, but I hope in a little time to find ym less afflictive. My wound would have been sooner heal’d had it not been kept open by the Occasions I have had to give Others yt comfort which I have wanted myself. On Tuesday I went with Mrs Arbuthnot towards Brentford to meet Dr Gregory and his Wife who were expected that day from Maidenhead. My errand was to inform ym of the death of their Girl, of whom they were extremely fond, they left Her well when they went to ye Bath, and she died on Friday was sennight. We met not ye coach We expected, and when We returned, We found a letter was sent from Mrs Gregory to her brother Dr Oliphant begging yt he would come down to Maidenhead to ye Dr, who was very ill. She came to Town on Thursday Night a very disconsolate Widow. The Doctor died on Tuesday-morning and was buried on Wednesday-Night at Maidenhead. A messenger was despatched to Hambledon to fetch you to Him, if you had been there. Mr Lesley came from ye Bath with Him and assisted Him in his sickness, and in extremis. Dr Arbuthnot from Windsor came to Him. It seems He always told his Wife that He should be but short-lived, and of late has often desir’d Her to be prepared for his being taken from Her very quickly. When his last Suit of Cloaths was made, He said He should not live to wear them out. When He went out of Town, He did not expect to come home again alive; and when He left ye Bath to return He thought He should not be able to reach ye town. I am told that He has left his Family in very good Circumstances. I am afraid his tender con[cern] for ym was prejudicial to his Health. He was an affectionate Husband, a tender Father, an excellent Scholar, a man of great Experience and Prudence, of good temper, of sober and religious principles, and One whom those who had the happiness to be acquainted with Him will much miss. I visited ye Widow Yesterday, who bears her Affliction with as much patience and resignation as can be expected. I hope her Husband’s Friends will do what they can to make her loss less insupportable.
‘I am, Sir
‘Your H. Servant
‘G. S.’
On her return to Oxford Mrs Gregory put up a monument to her husband’s memory in the nave of St Mary’s Church. After Professor Gregory’s death, Colin Maclaurin published of Gregory’s work A Treatise on Practical Geometry. The first edition was sold out within a few years, and a second was called for, as this book was in its day used as a text-book in all the Scottish Universities.
Professor Gregory has been accused of spending too little of his time in the observatory, and he was undoubtedly greater as a mathematician than as an astronomer. It was as a pure mathematician that he held the high place which was his in the eighteenth century.