GILFILLAN,
a surname, composed of two Gaelic words, dignifying servant of Fillan.
Who this Fillan was it is impossible to say. Ossian makes one Fillan a
son of Fingal. Originally the Gilfillans belonged to the Isle of Mull,
and were all cut in pieces by a hostile tribe, with the exception of two
married women, who made their escape to the mainland, and bore twins
each, from which four sprung all the Gilfillans in Scotland. The
tradition of all the tribe being slain in the clan wars of ancient
times, except one or two married women who were in a condition to
perpetuate the race, is common to more Highland septs than the
Gilfillans. Persons of the name abound in the parish of Buchlyvie,
Stirlingshire.
Two of the
name, the Rev. George Gilfillan, Dundee, and Robert Gilfillan, song
writer, of whom a memoir follows, have acquired considerable literary
reputation.
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The Rev.
George Gilfillan, celebrated as a critic and popular essayist, was born
January 30, 1813, at Comrie, Perthshire, where his father, the Rev.
Samuel Gilfillan, author of a work on the Sabbath, which went though
several editions, and was translated into the French, Dutch, and Russian
languages, was minister of the Secession Church. He was a native of
Bucklyvie, Stirlingshire, and enjoyed extraordinary popularity as a
preacher. His writings, under the signature of Menmas, were read over
all Scotland, and are mentioned with high praise by Hugh Miller in his
‘Schools and Schoolmasters.’ He died in 1826, aged 64. George, the
youngest child of his parents, was educated at the parish school of his
native place, and went to Glasgow College in the end of 1825. He took
several prizes, and in 1830 entered the Divinity Hall of the Secession
body, (now the United Presbyterian Synod,) and continued there five
sessions, being employed in the winter teaching in Edinburgh. In April
1835 he was licensed to preach by the Edinburgh Secession Presbytery,
and received a call from Comrie, and one from the Schoolwynd church,
Dundee. He accepted the latter, and was ordained there in March 1836. In
the end of 1839 he published a little book, entitled ‘Five Discourses,’
and in 1842, a Discourse, entitled ‘Hades, or the Unseen,’ which reached
a third edition. He early discovered a taste for literature, and wrote a
series of literary portraits in the ‘Dumfries Herald,’ which he
afterwards collected and enlarged, and published, separately, in 1845,
under the title of ‘A Gallery of Literary Portraits,’ which was very
successful, and in 1860 had reached its 4th edition. In 1849
he issued a Second ‘Gallery,’ and in 1850 ‘The Bards of the Bible.’ In
1851, amongst many other prefaces, he wrote ‘Preface to Book of British
Poesy.’ In 1852 he published a work, entitled the ‘Martyrs, Heroes, and
Bards of the Scottish Covenant,’ which, like his other works, sold well,
and in 1853 a little religious treatise on the Fatherhood of God. In
1854 a third ‘Gallery of Literary Portraits’ appeared; in 1856 his
‘History of a Man:’ in 1857 his most elaborate work ‘Christianity and
our Era;’ and in 1860 his ‘Alpha and Omega,’ in 2 vols. His
contributions to periodicals, such as the ‘British Quarterly,’ the
‘Eclectic review,’ ‘Tait’s Magazine,’ ‘Hogg’s Instructor,’ ‘Titan,’ ‘The
Scottish Review,’ &c. Have been numerous. In 1860 he made a tour in
Sweden, and his sketches of that country inserted in ‘The Scottish
Review,’ a Glasgow publication, were full of interest. As a lecturer he
has at various times appeared in most of the large towns of Scotland and
England, and for a long time no name was more prominent than his in
current periodical literature. In the pulpit he is distinguished as an
earnest, impressive, and fervid preacher. Referring to the connection of
the discharge of clerical duty with attention to literary pursuits, he
says in his ‘History of a Man,’ “In my own humble way I have sincerely
and conscientiously sought to unite and harmonize literature and the
duties of a clergyman; and, however imperfectly I may have succeeded, I
do not regret the attempt; since I believe it has, in some instances,
made my voice be heard with greater deference, first, when I spoke to
Christians of the glories of genius and the charms of literature, and
far more when I spoke to young lovers of literature, of the superior
claims and infinitely higher merits of the Book of God.’
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The minor
lyrical poet, Robert Gilfillan, was born in Dunfermline, on 7th
July 1798. His father was a manufacturer in a small way, having a few
weavers working under him. A second cousin of his is believed to have
been the author of the song entitled ‘The Braes aboon Bonaw,’ who in
early life went abroad and died soon after. Robert’s mother, Marion, was
the daughter of Henry Law, also a small manufacturer in Dunfermline. He
was the second of three sons. There was also one daughter, Margaret. In
a letter to Mr. George Farquhar Graham, editor of ‘Wood’s Songs of
Scotland,’ dated 14th March 1848, he gives the following
account of his family. “My great-grandfather,” he says, “rented a small
farm in Stirlingshire. His only son, Robert, my grandfather, chose the
sea-life as a profession, and became captain of a merchant vessel,
trading to foreign parts. In one of his voyages his ship was captured by
a Spanish privateer; but while the Spaniards were below, rummaging his
papers and cargo, he, with great promptitude, ordered the hatches to be
nailed down, and placing himself with loaded pistols on the cabin stair,
declared that the first who made his appearance was a dead man! At the
same time he directed both ships to make sail for England, standing
twenty-four hours as sentry over his double prize, both of which he
carried safely into a British port. For this act of bravery he was
recommended to government; but merit, eighty years ago, was tardily
rewarded. A change of ministers took place, and my poor grandfather’s
claims fell to the grounds. He is buried in Torryburn churchyard, where
a massive stone covers his humble grave. My father wrote occasional
verses on local subjects, al above mediocrity; but, with less vanity
than his son, none of them were ever published.” He received the
rudiments of his education at a school in his native place, and in 1811,
while only 13 years of age, his parents removed to Leith, where he had
an uncle in good circumstances. In that town he was apprenticed to the
cooper trade, and served the usual term of seven years. In 1818 he
returned to Dunfermline, where he was employed for three years as
manager of a grocery shop. He then returned to Leith, and obtained
employment as a clerk in the warehouse of a firm of oil and colour
merchants. He was afterwards engaged as confidential clerk to a wine
merchant of the same town. In 1837 he was appointed collector of the
police rates at Leith, the duties of which office he continued to
discharge during the remainder of his life. On St. Andrew’s day (30th
November) of the same year, he was, on the motion of Sir Thomas Dick
Lauder, baronet, elected Grand Bard to the Grand Lodge of Free Masons in
Scotland, an office originally created for and filled by Robert Burns.
In April 1850 he originated a subscription to defray the expense of
repairing the monument to the memory of Robert Fergusson, erected by
Burns in the Canongate churchyard. Mr. Gilfillan died on the 4th
of the following December (1850), aged 52, having the previous day been
attacked by apoplexy. His remains were interred in South Leith
churchyard, where a monument was soon after erected to his memory. He
was never married. His attachment to his relatives, particularly to his
mother and sister, was intense; and his niece, Miss Mary Marion Law
Gilfillan, the daughter of his brother James, constantly resided with
him, from her childhood till his death. He claimed to be a second cousin
of the Rev. George Gilfillan, although their connexion could never be
traced.
Mr. Gilfillan
first attempted song-writing while still in his apprenticeship. His
earliest printed pieces appeared in a Dundee paper, and they at once
attracted attention for their genuine Scottish feeling, truthfulness of
sentiment, and fine illustrations of home and the domestic affections.
In 1828 he wrote no less than twenty-two songs; among these was ‘Peter
M’Craw,’ one of the most humorous satires in Scottish verse. Encouraged
by the popularity of such of his songs as had been singly published, and
by the occasional favourable notice of his name in the ‘Noctes
Ambrosianae’ of Blackwood’s Magazine, he produced in 1831 a volume of
about 150 pages, entitled ‘Original Songs,’ which he dedicated to Allan
Cunningham. In 1835 he published an enlarged edition of his songs, with
fifty additional pieces. Soon after the publication of this volume he
was entertained at a public dinner by about eighty gentlemen in the
Royal Exchange Coffee-house, Edinburgh, when a splendid silver cup was
presented to him, in token of their high estimation of his poetical
talents and private worth. On this occasion, Mr. Peter M’Leod, the
composer of the music of some of his finest songs, was chairman. In 1839
a third and larger collection of his songs appeared. Soon after his
death a fourth edition of his songs was published, with a memoir by the
author of this work, and a supplement of his latest poems.
