See _Acta Sanctorum_ (September), i. 284-299; Devic and Vaissete, _Histoire générale de Languedoc_, pp. 514-522 (Toulouse, 1876); E. Rembry, _Saint Gilles, sa vie, ses reliques, son culte en Belgique et dans le nord de la France_ (Bruges, 1881); F. Arnold-Forster, _Studies in Church Dedications, or England's Patron Saints_, ii. 46-51, iii. 15, 363-365 (1899); A. Jameson, _Sacred and Legendary Art_, 768-770 (1896); A. Bell, _Lives and Legends of the English Bishops and Kings, Medieval Monks, and other later Saints_, pp. 61, 70, 74-78, 84, 197 (1904). (H. De.)
GILFILLAN, GEORGE (1813-1878), Scottish author, was born on the 30th of January 1813, 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 Glasgow University, 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afterwards another sermon on "Hades," which brought him under the scrutiny of his co-presbyters, and was ultimately withdrawn from circulation.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; and these, with several new ones, formed his first _Gallery of Literary Portraits_, which appeared in 1846, and had a wide circulation. It was quickly followed by a _Second_ and a _Third Gallery_. In 1851 his most successful work, the _Bards of the Bible_, appeared. His aim was that it should be "a poem on the Bible"; and it was far more rhapsodical than critical. His _Martyrs and Heroes of the Scottish Covenant_ appeared in 1832, and in 1856 he produced a partly autobiographical, partly fabulous, _History of a Man_. For thirty years he was engaged upon a long poem, on _Night_, which was published in 1867, but its theme was too vast, vague and unmanageable, and the result was a failure. He also edited an edition of the _British Poets_. As a lecturer and as a preacher he drew large crowds, but his literary reputation has not proved permanent. He died on the 13th of August 1878. He had just finished a new life of Burns designed to accompany a new edition of the works of that poet.