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,