384 WATT, 



not low-spirited, and were you here you would find 

 me as cheerful in the company of my friends as usual ; 

 my feelings for the loss of poor Gregory are not 

 passion, but a deep regret that such was his and my 

 lot." He then expresses his pious resignation to the 

 will of " the Disposer of events." It is true, he adds 

 that he had lost one stimulus to exertion, and with it 

 his relish for his usual avocations, but he looks to 

 time for a remedy, and adds, " meanwhile, I do not 

 neglect the means of amusement which are within my 

 power." This letter was written in January 1805, only 

 a few weeks after the loss of his son. In another letter 

 written in April to the same gentleman, his cousin, Mr. 

 Muirhead, great uncle of the able and learned translator 

 of M. Arago's ( Eloge,' after expressing his confident 

 hopes that Gregory had changed this mortal state for 

 a far happier existence, he says, as if anxious to avoid all 

 suspicion of his giving way to excessive sorrow, " You 

 are not to conceive that we give way to grief : on the 

 contrary, you will find us as cheerful as we ought to 

 be, and as much disposed to enjoy the friends we have 

 left as ever. But we should approach to brutes if we 

 had no regrets." In this letter he quotes the beautiful 

 lines of Catullus, " Nunc it per iter tenebricosum," &c. 

 To this evidence at the period of his son's death 

 let me add the testimony of Lord Jeffrey, who knew 

 him well, and who brings down the account to the 

 latest years of his life. " His health, which was deli- 

 cate from his youth upwards, seemed to become firmer 

 as he advanced in years ; and he possessed, up almost 

 to the last moments of his existence, not only the full 

 command of his extraordinary intellect, but all the 



