advocated. He was widely read, and wrote in a powerful and sarcastic though sometimes inflated style. His attacks were specially directed against the English government of Ireland. He does not seem to have meddled, save with his pen, in political strife. ‘I never was of any club, fraternity, or association,’ he says (Addresses to the People of Ireland, p. 3). Bentham describes him as clever but impracticable. A large portion of Ensor's life was spent at Ardress, co. Armagh. There he died 3 Dec. 1843.
Ensor wrote: 1. ‘The Independent Man, or an Essay on the Formation and Development of those Principles and Faculties of the Human Mind which constitute Moral and Intellectual Excellence,’ 2 vols. 1806. 2. ‘On National Government,’ first part, 2 vols. 1810. 3. ‘Defects of the English Laws and Tribunals,’ 1812. 4. ‘An Answer to the Speeches of Mr. Abbot, &c., on the Catholic Question, debated in the House of Commons 24 May 1813,’ Dublin, 1813. 5. ‘On the State of Europe in January 1816,’ 1816. 6. ‘An Inquiry concerning the Population of Nations, containing a Refutation of Mr. Malthus's Essay on Population,’ 1818. 7. ‘Radical Reform, Restoration of Usurped Rights,’ 1819. 8. ‘Addresses to the People of Ireland on the Degradation and Misery of their Country,’ &c., Dublin, 1823. 9. ‘The Poor and their Relief,’ 1823. 10. ‘A Defence of the Irish and the Means of their Redemption,’ Dublin, 1825. 11. ‘Irish Affairs at the close of 1825,’ Dublin, 1826. 12. ‘Letters showing the Inutility and exhibiting the Absurdity of what is fantastically called “The New Reformation”’ [viz. the attempt to convert the Irish to the protestant faith], Dublin, 1828. 13. ‘Anti-Union: Ireland as she ought to be,’ Newry, 1831. 14. ‘A Review of the Miracles, Prophecies, and Mysteries of the Old and New Testaments, and of the Morality and Consolation of the Christian Religion,’ 1835. 15. ‘Before and After the Reform Bill,’ 1842. 16. ‘Of Property, and of its Equal Distribution as promoting Virtue, Population, Abundance,’ 1844. Ensor also wrote treatises on the ‘Principles of Morality,’ ‘National Education,’ ‘The Catholic Question,’ ‘No Veto,’ ‘Natural Theology,’ and the ‘Corn Laws.’
[Bentham's Works, x. 603; Webb's Compendium of Irish Biog. (Dublin, 1878); Cat. Dub. Grad.; Quart. Rev. xxii. 102.]
ENT, Sir GEORGE, M.D. (1604–1689), physician, son of Josias Ent, a merchant of the Low Countries whom religious persecution had driven into England, was born at Sandwich, Kent, 6 Nov. 1604. He was sent to school at Rotterdam, where James Beckman was his master. In April 1624 he entered at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, graduated B.A. 1627, and M.A. 1631. He then studied for five years at Padua, and graduated M.D. 28 April 1636. In accordance with the custom of that university some pages of verses addressed to him by his friends were published under the title ‘Laureæ Apollinari,’ Padua, 1636. On the back of the title-page, with true Low Country pride, his arms are finely engraved: Sable between three hawk-bells a chevron or; the crest a falcon with bells and the motto an anagram of his name, ‘Genio surget.’ Among the fellow-students who wrote verses to him is John Greaves [q. v.], afterwards Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford. Ent was incorporated M.D. at Oxford 9 Nov. 1638, and was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians 25 June 1639. He married 10 Feb. 1646 Sarah, daughter of Dr. Meverall [q. v.], treasurer of the College of Physicians. In 1642 Ent was Gulstonian lecturer in the college. He was censor for twenty-two years, registrar 1655–70, president 1670–5, and again in 1682 and 1684. In 1665, after an anatomy lecture at the college in Warwick Lane, at which the king was present, Charles II knighted Ent in the Harveian Museum. Dryden (Epistle to Dr. Charleton) has commemorated the friendship of Harvey and Ent, and Harvey left Ent five pounds to buy a ring. He was one of the original fellows of the Royal Society. His house was in the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, where he died 13 Oct. 1689, and was buried in the church of St. Lawrence Jewry, close to the Guildhall of London.
His works are: 1. ‘Apologia pro circuitione sanguinis,’ London, 1641, of which a second edition was published in 1683. Both editions are dedicated to Sir Theophilus Clinton, earl of Lincoln, and are preceded by an address to Harvey, with laudatory Greek verses by Dr. Baldwin Hamey, and Latin verses by John Greaves. The book defends Harvey's doctrine of the circulation in general, and is a particular reply to Æmylius Parisanus, a Venetian physician. The argument is somewhat too long, but is in excellent Latin, with many happy quotations from Greek and Latin poets. The original manuscript is in the library of the College of Physicians. 2. A dedicatory letter prefixed to Harvey's ‘De generatione animalium,’ 1651. Harvey was inclined to postpone the publication of this book indefinitely for further observations, but Ent persuaded the great physiologist to entrust the manuscript to him, and with the author's leave published it, giving in the dedication to the president and fellows of the
