200 MEMOIR OF MR GREGORY. 



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 severe suffer- 

 ing, had gone through the irksome labour of examining 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 differ- 

 ential equations and those in finite differences. This analogy 

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

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

 be ascertained. 



At length, on the 23rd February 1844, after" sufferings, on 

 which, notwithstanding the admirable patience with which they 

 were borne, it would be painful to dwell, his illness terminated 

 in death. He had been for a short time aware that the end 

 was at hand, and, with an unclouded mind, he prepared himself 

 calmly and humbly for the great change ; receiving and giving 

 comfort and support from the thankful hope that the close of 

 his suffering life here, was to be the beginning of an endless 

 existence of rest and happiness in another world. He retained 

 to the last, when he knew that his own connection with earthly 

 things was soon to cease, the unselfish interest which he had ever 

 felt in the pursuits and happiness of those he loved. 



A few words may be allowed about a character where rare 

 and sterling qualities were combined. His upright, sincere, 

 and honourable nature secured to him general respect. By his 

 intimate friends, he was admired for the extent and variety 

 of his information, always communicated readily, but without 

 a thought of display, for his refinement and delicacy of taste 



