162 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



courtesy of a free ticket was never in any similar case ex- 

 tended to me, at home or abroad. I have myself generally 

 given free tickets to professors and to those who are pre- 

 paring to be professors. When, however, they have gone 

 through the practical drill of instruction by daily labors in 

 the experimental laboratory, I have generally charged the 

 institutions with which they were connected. It has been 

 my practice to give free tickets to clergymen, and to their 

 daughters, when, as pupils in the female schools in New 

 Haven, they have attended my lectures. But to return to 

 Dr. Gregory. As the son of an eminent father, the author 

 of " A Father's Legacy to his Daughters," he enjoyed a pres- 

 tige of enviable fame. But there was no occasion to build 

 on his father's foundation. Being a man of distinguished 

 talents, of large stores of knowledge, and a fervid, rapid 

 eloquence, his lecture-hall was crowded with an attentive 

 and gratified audience. His lectures were very informal, 

 although not immethodical ; if they were written out, he 

 made no use of notes, but began without exordium, and 

 poured out the rich treasures of his ardent mind with such 

 crowding rapidity of diction that it was not always easy to 

 apprehend fully his thoughts, because we could not dis- 

 tinctly hear all his words. He had many historical and 

 personal anecdotes, some of which have remained with me 

 during the fifty-two years that have passed since I heard 

 them. 



Dr. Gregory sometimes indulged in sarcastic wit. He 

 was not on good terms with Dr. Hope, who was reputed to 

 be very conservative of money ; and Dr. Gregory was re- 

 ported to have said, that no sooner did a golden guinea 

 touch the palm of his colleague's hand, than it produced a 

 convulsive movement of the flexor muscles which locked 

 fast the precious coin. 



Dr. Gregory's mind kindled so much with his subject, 

 that he was not ready to stop when the bell told that the 

 hour was gone, and the students rushed for the door that 



