MEMOIR OF THE LATE D. F. GREGORY, M.A. 

 FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE*. 



THE subject of the following memoir died in his thirty-first 

 year. He had, nevertheless, accomplished enough not only to 

 justify high expectations of his future progress in the science to 

 which he had principally devoted himself, but also to entitle 

 his name to a place in some permanent record. 



Duncan Farquharson Gregory was born at Edinburgh in 

 April 1813. He was the youngest son of Dr James Gregory, 

 the distinguished professor of Medicine, and was thus of the 

 same family as the two celebrated mathematicians James and 

 David Gregory. The former of these, his direct ancestor, is 

 familiarly remembered as the inventor of the telescope which 

 bears his name ; he lived in an age of great mathematicians, and 

 was not unworthy to be their contemporary. 



Of the early years of Mr Gregory's life but little need be 

 said. The peculiar bent of his mind towards mathematical 

 speculations does not appear to have been perceived during his 

 childhood; but, in the usual course of education, he shewed 

 much facility in the acquisition of knowledge, a remarkably 

 active and inquiring mind, and a very retentive memory. It 

 may, perhaps, be mentioned here, that his father, whom he lost 

 before he was seven years old, used to predict distinction for 

 him ; and was so struck with his accurate information and clear 

 memory, that he had pleasure in conversing with him, as with 

 an equal, on subjects of history and geography. In his case, as 

 in many others, ingenuity in little mechanical contrivances seems 

 to have preceded, and indicated the developement of a taste for 

 abstract science. 



* Cambridge MatliematicalJournal, No. I. Vol. iv. p. 145, November, 1844. 



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