Gilfil, Rev. Maynard

Sir Christopher Cheverel's ward and chaplain, later vicar of Shepperton and Knebley; a man greatly beloved by his parishioners. " The Vicar did not shine in the more spiritual functions of his office; and indeed, the utmost I can say for him in this respect is, that he performed those functions with undeviating attention to brevity and despatch. He had a large heap of short sermons, rather yellow and worn at the edges, from which he took two every Sunday, securing perfect impartiality in the selection by taking them as they came without reference to topics; and having preached one of these sermons at Shepperton in the morning, he mounted his horse and rode hastily with the other in his pocket to Knebley, where he officiated in a wonderful little church .... Here, in an absence of mind to which he was prone, Mr. Gillil would sometimes forget to take off his spurs before putting on his surplice, and only become aware of the omission by feeling something mysteriously tugging at the skirts of that garment as he stepped into the reading-desk." "The dear old Vicar, though he had something of the knotted whimsical character of the poor lopped oak, had yet been sketched out by nature as a noble tree. The heart of him was sound, the grain was of the finest, and in the grey-haired man who filled his pocket with sugar-plums for the little children, whose most biting words were directed against the evil-doing of the rich man, and who, with all his social pipes and slipshod talk, never sank below the highest level of his parishioners' respect, there was the main trunk of the same brave, faithful, tender nature that had poured out the finest, freshest forces of its life-current in a first and only love—the love of Tina." All through his youth he loves the little Italian, Caterina, and tries to watch over her during her unhappy love affair with the worthless Captain Wybrow. After she partially recovers from the shock of Captain Wybrow's death he marries her, and has a few months of great happiness as her husband. When she dies, that side of his life is closed forever, and he lives a solitary life among his parishioners, all of whom admire and respect him greatly. The Reverend Bernard Gilpin Ebdell, who married Sally Shilton ("Caterina"), was the original of Maynard Gilfil. It has been suggested that some touches in his character are taken from the Reverend Henry Hake, vicar of Chilvers Coton from 1844- 1859. (See Andrews, Bygone Warwickshire, p. 271 ; Olcott, George Eliot, pp. 15, 33 ; also article by George Morley in Gentleman's Magazine, n.s., vol. 45, p. 583.) Bernard Gilpin Ebdell, vicar of Chilvers Coton, was the clergyman who, in 1819, baptized Mary Ann Evans. He was vicar 1786-1828.

<em>Mr. Gilfil's Love Story, Scenes of Clerical Life</em>

Text