Gilfillan, GEORGE

Gilfillan, GEORGE, critic and essayist, was born in 1813 at Conrie, Perthshire, where his father was Secession minister. He studied at the university of Glasgow, and at the divinity hall of the Secession body, afterwards the United Presbyterian Church, and in 1835 he was licensed to preach the gospel. In 1836 he was ordained to the School Wynd Church, Dundee, where he remained till his death, 13th August 1878. He attained considerable reputation as a lecturer and pulpit orator, and was incessantly industrious with his pen. His friends and fellow-citizens presented him with £1000 in 1877. His works are numerous. They display a rich but reckless fancy, and wide literary sympathies, although deficient perhaps in refinement of taste. Among them are A Gallery of Literary Portraits (3 vols. 1845-54); The Bards of the Bible (1850; 7th ed. 1887); The Martyrs of the Scottish Covenant (1852); History of a Man, largely autobiographical (1856); Alpha and Omega (1860); Night: a Poem (1867); Remoter Stars in the Church Sky (1867); Lives of Scott (1870), Dr W. Anderson (1873), and Burns (1880); and Sketches, Literary and Theological (1881). In 1853 he commenced an edition of the British Poets in 48 vols. His Letters and Journals, with Memoir by Watson, appeared in 1892.