230 Memoir of Mr Gregory. 



the writer, — " All these things seem to me to be a kind of 

 mathematical paradise." 



In 1841, the mathematical Professorship at Toronto was 

 •offered to Mr Gregory : this, however, circumstances induced 

 him to decline. Some years previously he had been a candi- 

 -date for the Mathematical Chair at Edinburgh. 



His year of office as moderator ended in October 1842. In 

 the University examination for mathematical honours in the 

 following January, he, however, in accordance with the usual 

 routine, took a share, with the title of examiner, — a position 

 little less important, and very nearly as laborious, as that of 

 moderator. Besides these engagements in the University, he 

 had been for two or three years actively employed in lecturing 

 and examining in the College of which he was a fellow. In 

 the fulfilment of these duties, he shewed an earnest and con- 

 stant desire for the improvement of his pupils, and his own 

 love of science tended to diffuse a taste for it among the better 

 order of students. He had for some time meditated a work 

 on Finite Differences, and had commenced a treatise on Solid 

 Geometry, which, unhappily, he did not live to complete. 

 In the midst of these various occupations, he felt the earliest 

 approaches of the malady which terminated his life. 



The first attack of illness occurred towards the close of 

 1842. It was succeeded by others, and in the spring of 1843, 

 he left Cambridge never to return again. He had just before 

 taken part in a college examination, and, notwithstanding se- 

 vere suffering, had gone through the irksome labour of ex- 

 amining with patient energy and undiminished interest. 



Many months followed of almost constant pain. Whenever 

 an interval of tolerable ease occurred, he continued to interest 

 himself in the pursuits to which he had been so long devoted ; 

 he went on with the work on geometry, and, but a little while 

 before his death, commenced a paper on the analogy of diffe- 

 rential equations and those in finite differences. This analogy 

 it is known that he had developed to a great length ; unfor- 

 tunately, only a portion of his views on the subject can now 

 be ascertained. 



At length, on the 23d February 1844, after sufferings, on 

 which, notwithstanding the admirable patience with which 



