Excerpt from George Gilfillan: Anecdotes and Reminiscences For three important public services, apart from his ministerial work, George Gilfillan deserves to be held in grateful remembrance. The first is the valuable contribution he made to Literature, both in prose and poetry - if one may use these terms to distinguish the blank verse in his "Night" from the prose that so often, as in his "Bards of the Bible," seethes with poetic feeling, boiling and flashing along at times with the impetuosity and thunder of Anacreon's war-songs. Gilfillan's most valuable literary work was, beyond doubt, his "Gallery of Literary Portraits." No book of its time did more to quicken, especially in young Scotchmen, the love of literature, and open their eyes to the glory of Shelley, Wordsworth, Byron, and even their own Bums. I have often wondered that these essays - the finest fruits of Gilfillan's genius, and as fascinating to-day as when first published - have never been reproduced in any of our cheap series of classic authors - series that include some works of less permanent interest and value. Another thing for which Gilfillan deserves to be remembered is the warm and magnanimous sympathy he felt with youthful aspiration, and was ever ready to extend to youthful genius, struggling with poverty or in danger of being lost through discouragement or neglect. To these earnest and aspiring souls George Gilfillan was the Maecenas of Scotland. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books.

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