‘My Dear Girls—You had the misfortune to be deprived of your Mother at a time of life when you were insensible of your loss, and could receive little benefit either from her instruction or her example. Before this comes to your hands, you will likewise have lost your Father. I have had many melancholy reflections on the forlorn and helpless situation you must be in if it should please God to remove me from you before you arrive at that period of life, when you will be able to think and act for yourselves.... I have been supported under the gloom ... by a reliance on the Goodness of that Providence which has hitherto preserved you, and given me the most pleasing prospect of the goodness of your dispositions, and by the secret hope that your Mother’s virtues will entail a blessing on her children.’
This was the spirit in which the book was written, and though it is a type of book which has entirely passed out of fashion, it is interesting to read it and remember that in the days of our great-grandmothers it had its place on every girl’s table.
Dr Gregory had a very observant way of watching girls, he knew life, and his advice was shrewd and tender. In the chapter on Conduct and Behaviour there are many quaint observations as to what gifts are attractive in a girl.
‘Wit,’ he says, ‘is the most dangerous talent you can possess, it must be guarded with great discretion and good nature, otherwise it will create you many enemies’.... ‘Be even cautious in displaying your good sense. It will be thought you assume a superiority over the rest of the company—But if you happen to have any learning, keep it a profound secret, especially from the men’.... ‘Beware of detraction, especially when your own sex are concerned. You are generally accused of being particularly addicted to this vice—I think unjustly—Men are fully as guilty of it when their interests interfere. As your interests more frequently clash, and as your feelings are quicker than ours, your temptations to it are more frequent. For this reason, be particularly tender of the reputation of your own sex, especially when they happen to rival you in our regards.’ Later on, there is a pathetic feeling of how little he can foretell his daughters’ tastes. ‘I do not want to make you anything, I want to know what Nature has made you, and to perfect you on her plan.’
A Father’s Legacy to his Daughter was intended only for his own girls, and was not published till after Dr Gregory’s death. During his time in Edinburgh he brought out besides his Comparative View, Lectures on the Duties and Qualifications of a Physician, which were his introductory lectures, and Elements of the Practice of Physic, a first volume of a text-book for his students which he did not live to complete. He thought medicine required a more comprehensive mind than any other profession, and often brought much besides mere technical knowledge into his lectures. As a speaker he was simple, natural and vigorous. He lectured only from notes, ‘in a style happily attempered,’ said one of his contemporaries, ‘between the formality of studied composition, and the ease of conversation.’ On one thing he insisted, that every student should appreciate the limitations of medicine, for only so could they learn to extend its borders.
During these years, too, he carried on a constant correspondence with James Beattie, Professor of Moral Philosophy in Aberdeen, and a poet. Both Beattie and Thomas Reid, who held the corresponding chair in Glasgow, were engaged in combating the teaching of David Hume, which had become very fashionable, and Gregory, though much attached to David Hume as a man, feared him as a teacher, and dreaded the growth of that scepticism which marked the time—a tendency quite as bitterly lamented in England by Samuel Johnson.
‘I am well convinced,’ Gregory wrote to Beattie in a letter dated Edinburgh, 16th June 1767, ‘that the great deference paid to our modern heathens has been productive of the worst effects. Young people are impressed with an idea of their being men of superior abilities, whose genius has raised them above the vulgar prejudices, and who have spirit enough to avow openly their contempt of them. Atheism and Materialism are the present fashion. If one speak with warmth of an infinitely wise and good Being, who sustains and directs the frame of nature, or expresses his steady belief of a future state of existence, he gets hints of his having either a very weak understanding, or of his being a very great hypocrite.... You are the best man I know to chastise these people as they deserve, you have more Philosophy and more wit than will be necessary for the purpose, though you can never employ any of them in so good a cause.’
When Beattie’s answer to Hume was in manuscript, he sent it to Dr Gregory, who read it, and cordially approved of it, but one result of this was that Gregory had to become a partaker in the acrimony of Hume’s friends. His advices as to an attractive style were somewhat curious, ‘You are well aware of the antipathy, which the present race of readers have against all abstract reasoning, except what is employed in defence of the fashionable principles; but though they pretend to admire their metaphysical champions, yet they never read them, nor if they did, could they understand them. Among Mr Hume’s numerous disciples, I do not know one who ever read his Treatise on Human Nature. In order, therefore, to be read, you must not be satisfied with reasoning with justness and perspicuity; you must write with pathos, with elegance, with spirit, and endeavour to warm the imagination and touch the heart of those who are deaf to the voice of reason. Whatever you write in the way of criticism will be read, and, if my partiality to you does not deceive me, be admired. Everything relating to the ‘Belles Lettres’ is read, or pretended to be read. What has made Lord Kames’ Elements of Criticism so popular in England, is his numerous illustrations and quotations from Shakespeare.... This is a good political hint to you in your capacity of an author.’
Gregory was also consulted about the sketch design of Beattie’s Poem, The Minstrel, which he admired, and the closing stanza written by his friend the poet, when he heard of Gregory’s death, was supposed to be very beautiful poetry. Cowper wrote in one of his letters to the Rev. William Unwin, ‘If you have not his poem called The Minstrel, and cannot borrow it, I must beg you to buy it for me, for though I cannot afford to deal largely in so expensive a commodity as books, I must afford to purchase at least the poetical works of Beattie.’
Gregory’s views of his friend’s high gifts then were shared by Cowper. Gray also held him in high estimation, and Mrs Siddons spent an afternoon with Beattie, crying because they were so happy over poetry and music, and some of the poetry must have been his own. As for Beattie’s lines on Gregory, they are as much calculated to draw smiles as tears from our eyes.