Gustavus Adolphus's victories, dated 1631, of which a manuscript copy is among the Tanner MSS. (306) at the Bodleian Library, was reprinted separately from the ‘Parerga,’ according to Wood, and also at the close of ‘A New Starr of the North,’ London, 1632. A Latin congratulatory poem on Charles I's return from Scotland, by Gill, was printed by John Waterson in 1641 (four leaves). A copy is at Lambeth (44, E. 1). Wood further credits Gill with an elegy on Strafford in 1641, and describes a manuscript book, which ‘I have also seen,’ containing other Latin verses (fifteen poems in all), some addressed to friends, and some descriptive of Gustavus Adolphus's victories. This book does not now seem extant, but its contents are partly represented in manuscript pieces in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in the Bodleian Library (Tanner MS. 306), and in the British Museum (Burney MS. 368, f. 16). Nine of the pieces mentioned by Wood are also extant with twelve others by Gill (‘Epithalamia,’ an interchange of complimentary verse with Isaac Oliver, verses to Bacon, &c., besides five letters to Laud) in a manuscript volume belonging to Thomas Frewen, esq., of Brickwall Hall, Northiam, Sussex. The volume belonged to Charles Blake, D.D. [q. v.], and was intended for the press (cf. Gent. Mag. 1851, i. 345–7).
Gill and Ben Jonson had a long-standing feud, which began as early as 1623, in consequence of the elder Gill's patronage of Wither's satires. In the Ashmolean MSS. at the Bodleian Library are some abusive but interesting English verses by Gill on Ben Jonson's ‘Magnetick Lady,’ which Dr. Bliss printed in his edition of Wood's ‘Athenæ’ (ii. 598–599) under the error (afterwards corrected) that they were by the elder Gill. Zouch Townley defended Jonson from Gill's illiberal attack in a short poem (ib.)
[Masson's Life of Milton, i. 83, 190, 193, 207–213, 510, 528, 623; Coxe's Cat. MSS. at Oxford; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iii. 42–4; Gardiner's Reg. St. Paul's School, pp. 32, 38, 400; Aubrey's Lives, ii. 286–7.]
GILL, JOHN, D.D. (1697–1771), baptist minister, was born of poor parents at Kettering, Northamptonshire, on 23 Nov. 1697. He spent a very short time at Kettering grammar school. In November 1716 he was baptised, and shortly after began preaching. In 1718 he was ordained at Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire. In 1719 he removed to the baptist congregation at Horselydown, Southwark, which in 1757 was removed to a chapel near London Bridge. A Wednesday evening lectureship was founded for him in Great Eastcheap by his admirers in 1729, and this he held till 1756. In 1748 he was created D.D. at Aberdeen. He died at Camberwell, 14 Oct. 1771.
Gill's principal works were: 1. ‘Exposition of the Song of Solomon,’ 1728. 2. ‘The Prophecies of the Old Testament respecting the Messiah considered,’ 1728, written in answer to Collins. 3. ‘Treatise on the Doctrine of the Trinity,’ designed to check the spread of Sabellianism among the baptists, 1731. 4. ‘The Cause of God and Truth,’ in answer to Whitby's discourse on the five points, 4 vols. 1735–8. 5. ‘Exposition of the Holy Scriptures,’ his magnum opus, in which he utilises his extensive rabbinical learning. The New Testament portion appeared in 3 vols. folio in 1746–8; the Old Testament, in 6 vols. folio, was completed in 1766. 6. ‘Dissertation on the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel Points, and Accents,’ 1767. 7. ‘A Body of Doctrinal Divinity,’ 1767. 8. ‘A Body of Practical Divinity,’ 1770. 9. A collection of sermons and tracts, with memoir, 1773, 3 vols. 4to.
[Memoir by Dr. Ripon, 1816.]
GILL, WILLIAM JOHN (1843–1882), captain royal engineers, son of Major Robert Gill, Madras army, was born at Bangalore in 1843. He was educated at Brighton College, where one of his contemporaries was Augustus Margary, his precursor in travel from China to the Irawadi. From Brighton he went to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and obtained a commission in the royal engineers in 1864. In September 1869 he went to India and served there till March 1871. Just before his return to England a distant relation left Gill a handsome fortune, which enabled him to gratify his desire for exploration. On his return from India he was stationed until 1876 at Aldershot, Chatham, and Woolwich.
He first became known as a traveller when he joined Colonel Valentine Baker in the journey to Persia, of which an account was published by Baker early in 1876, under the title of ‘Clouds in the East.’ The journey occupied from April 1873 to the end of that year. The party travelled to Tiflis and Baku, and thence across the Caspian to Ashurada and Astrabad, intending to explore the Atrek valley. Disappointed in this, they proceeded to Teheran and wandered among the Elburz mountains north of that city, crossing the range by a pass 12,000 feet in height, in search of ibex and mouflon. Then skirting the great mountain Demavend they descended into the dense forests of Mazanderan, and, recrossing the mountains to Damghan, followed the
