John Gregory settled in 15 St John’s Street, Edinburgh, in 1764. His house was pleasantly situated on a hill, and was almost next door to Lord Monboddo’s, between whom and Gregory there presently sprang up a great intimacy. Practice came fast to Gregory, but celebrity greater than that which comes to a practitioner, however successful, made his first year in Edinburgh a year of triumph. Only a few months before, he had sent his manuscript of _A Comparative View of the State and Faculties of Man with those of the Animal World_ to Lord Lyttelton, and now the book had been published in London and received with such an enthusiasm that even Gregory and his patron were greatly astonished. London read the book, Aberdeen read the book, and so did Edinburgh, and Gregory was made at once a member of that literary Edinburgh as he had in his youth been received by Mrs Montague and her friends in London. The matter was good and fresh at the time, but what was most praised was the style. ‘If you wish to see the natural style in the highest perfection, read the works of the late Dr John Gregory.... But in particular his _Comparative View_, which in respect to natural ease and unaffected elegant simplicity of style is not to be exceeded in any language, and in as far as my reading has extended has not been equalled by any other composition in English.... Gregory’s style may be compared to the acting of Garrick; it is only by a retrospective view that its superior excellence can be discovered.’ This is only one of the many laudatory reviews of the book, and by no means the most flattering, and it says a great deal for John Gregory’s sense that, in spite of this lionising, he came so successfully through the difficulties which crowded round him for the next few years. Professor Rutherford watched with growing satisfaction the success of the Aberdeen doctor, whom he regarded as a protegé of his own. It was unfortunate for Gregory that he stood as it were as a rival of Cullen, for whom he had throughout life the profoundest regard. But nevertheless this was the case. In 1766 matters came to a climax in the appointment of Gregory to the Chair of the Practice of Physic, made vacant by the retirement of Professor Rutherford. There was an immediate and furious outcry against this election, which was known to be mostly due to family influence. Gregory was a great man, and proved himself a brilliant teacher, but at this time he was absolutely untried, whereas Cullen had already made himself a name as one of the greatest teachers of the day.