Critic and essayist, was born in the pleasant village of Comrie, Perthshire, where his father, who wrote under the nom de plume of “Leumas,” his own Christian name spelt backwards, was a minister of the Secession Church. Gilfillan himself was ordained as minister of a United Presbyterian congregation in Dundee in 1836, where he remained till his death. In 1846 he collected some sketches originally written for his friend Thomas Aird’s paper, the Dumfries Herald, into a volume called “A Gallery of Literary Portraits.” In 1843 he published a sermon on “Hades, or the Unseen,” which gave great offence to many of his clerical brethren, as seeming to admit a kind of purgatory in the future world; and in 1869 a book on “Christian Heroism,” in which he affirmed that the standards of the Church were “Seen now to contain many blunders.” Both these works somewhat estranged Mr. Gilfillan from his brethren, and it was some time before he could satisfy them of his orthodoxy. In 1854 he brought out “The Grand Discovery, or the Fatherhood of God,” followed the next year by “The Influence of Burns on Scottish Poetry and Song.” Mr. Gilfillan was the author of numerous other works, and at his death he was engaged on the “History of British Poetry.” In 1881 appeared some of his “Sketches, Literary and Theological,” under the editorship of Mr. Frank Henderson, M.P.
Personal
His funeral, 17 Aug., at Balgay cemetery, was attended by a procession two miles long. Gilfillan’s many friends acknowledged that success never spoilt him, and all recognised his generosity and sincerity. Though living so busy a life, he found time in vacations for much foreign travel.
General
A poor, meritorious Scotchman, a burgher minister in Dundee, of the name of Gilfillan, has published a book—I believe at his own expense too, poor fellow—under the title “Gallery of Literary Portraits,” or some such things; and is about sending, as in duty bound, a copy to the quarterly. I know not whether this poor book will in the least lie in your way; but to prevent you throwing it aside without so much as looking at it, I write now to bear witness that the man is really a person of superior parts; and that his book, of which I have read some of the sections, first published in a country newspaper that comes to me, is worthy of being looked at a little by you,—that you may decide then, with cause shown, whether there is anything to be done with it. I am afraid not very much! A strange, oriental, scriptural style; full of fervour, and crude gloomy fire—a kind of opium style. However, you must look a little, and say.
With all due charity, and largest allowances for his peculiar temperament, we must aver that Mr. Gilfillan is the most flagrant example of the “episodical” that we ever happened upon. No leap is too magnificent for him. Had he power equal to his wish, he would swim the Hellespont, and, without taking breath, hurry up the loftiest of the Olympus, and then at a bound, clear half the countries of the Orient, and alight on the snows that gird the mountains of the moon: and this, for pastime merely, while making a promenade from the Tuileries to the Place de Vendome. When we took up his book, and traced him through the sketch of Jeffrey, we rather liked him; but after bearing with his “sophomorics” to the sketch of Coleridge, we lost all patience, and wrote him down an ass. Yes, poor Dogberry had not half done justice to himself had he been George Gilfillan. Not that this same writer has not a considerable share of a certain sort of genius,… yet so vain is he and “protrusive,” that it requires a large degree of Christian charity to segregate his faults from his excellences, and give the latter their full weight in the balance of our judgment.
I hear that you have had the misfortune to be publicly praised by that coxcomb of coxcombs, Gilfillan.
He is beyond all doubt, one of those “second-sighted” men, “who see a sight we cannot see, and hear a voice we cannot hear.”… We have read the book, which is introduced to us by a title so repulsive to our taste, with mingled emotions. There are some passages in it, and many single expressions, which convey vivid ideas, and present pleasing images. We concede to him fancy, imagination, and a very considerable acquaintance with sources of poetical imagery. But these are not the only qualifications that are needed, to write instructively on Hebrew Poetry…. We go to that garden for nutritious vegetables and salutary fruits. But we are presented by Mr. Gilfillan with pretty nosegays and splendid boquets. We go looking for healthful nourishment, and we are told to lie down among the pinks and tulips and jessamines and roses, and that we shall, by so doing, be better satisfied than by any common-place affair of eating…. We say in all simplicity and earnestness, that we are sorry so noble a theme and so good a design should be so painfully marred by glaring conceits and accumulated prettinesses.
Mr. Nichol of Edinburgh was by no means fortunate in his choice of an editor for a series of the English poets, when he selected this gentleman to preface every volume with “a critical dissertation.” He is well known as a productive and very lively author, a sort of literary conjuror in the sober walks of criticism, who never appears without a blaze of fireworks about his head. He carries what is called fine writing to an excess which quite outdistances the usual range of sophomoric effort in that direction. Like Sir Hudibras,
| “For rhetoric, he could not ope | |
| His mouth, but out there flew a trope.” |
He possesses one of the most dangerous of arts for any one who would achieve solid and lasting reputation,—that of great verbal facility, approaching to conversational familiarity. He is sometimes happy in his metaphors and apt in his allusions, but is more likely to be extravagant in the one and grotesque in the other; reminding us forcibly of the bombast and egotism so generally observable in the prevailing style of second-rate American writers. Mr. Gilfillan is by no means devoid of talent; and it is well worth his while by a course of wholesome discipline of his natural abilities, to correct the errors of a critical pen which sometimes displays more passion than judgment and more vigour of language than depth of thought…. Whatever other charges Mr. Gilfillan’s critics may bring against him, he certainly cannot be accused of indolence, as, in addition to his professional duties, he contributes to no less than five or six periodicals. It is no slight commendation—but one to which he may justly lay claim—that a high moral purpose, a kindly spirit, and a hearty appreciation of the good, the right, and the true, are prominent characteristics of his writings.
He has been a very voluminous writer, but has been more ambitious of quantity in his productions than of quality. A dangerous facility of expression, unrestrained by a severe taste, has led him too often into what certainly approaches bombast.
The industry of Mr. Gilfillan is a remarkable and honourable feature in his character; and his writings, though too often disfigured by rash judgments and a gaudy rhetorical style, have an honest warmth and glow of expression which attests the writer’s sincerity, while they occasionally present striking and happy illustrations. From his very unequal pages, many felicitous images and metaphors might be selected.
Gilfillan’s glowing papers, always eloquent while not undiscriminating, excited considerable attention in their contrast to the general tameness (occasionally flavoured by cynicism) of English criticism.
Last of all, “The National Burns,” edited by the Rev. George Gilfillan is mainly notable for the Gilfillanism of its gifted Editor.
