Author Bowles William Lisle

George Gilfillan (30 January 1813 – 13 August 1878) was a Scottish author and poet. He was one of the spasmodic poets, and an editor and commentator of earlier British poetry. He is also remembered as the subject of An Address to the Rev. George Gilfillan, the first of William McGonagall's poetic productions. He was born at Comrie, Perthshire, where his father, the Rev. Samuel Gilfillan, the author of some theological works, was for many years minister of a Secession congregation. After an education at the University of Glasgow, in March 1836 he was ordained pastor of a Secession congregation in Dundee. He published a volume of his discourses in 1839, and shortly afterwards another sermon on Hades, which brought him under the scrutiny of his co-presbyters, and was ultimately withdrawn from circulation. Gilfillan next contributed a series of sketches of celebrated contemporary authors to the Dumfries Herald, then edited by Thomas Aird; these, with several new ones, formed his first Gall