ELLIS, George (1745–1815), a miscellaneous writer distinguished for his services in promoting a knowledge of early English literature, was born in London in 1745. Educated at Westminster School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, he commenced his literary career as a contributor to the Rolliad and the Probationary Odes, political satires directed against Pitt's administration. He was afterwards, however, on friendly terms with Pitt, and in 1797 he accompanied Lord Malmesbury to Lille as secretary to the embassy. He found continued scope for his powers as a political caricaturist in the columns of the Anti-Jacobin, to which he was, next to Canning and Frere, perhaps the most brilliant contributor. For some years before the Anti-Jacobin was started Ellis had been working in the congenial field of early English literature, in which he was one of the first to awaken a new interest. The first edition of his Specimens of the Early English Poets appeared in 1790–3 an enlarged edition in three volumes was published in 1801. This was followed by Specimens of Early English Romances in Metre (3 vols. 1805). Hallam speaks of his "good taste in selection;" and his skill as editor and interpreter were of much service to less learned readers than himself. Ellis was an intimate friend of Sir Walter Scott, who styled him "the first converser I ever saw," and dedicated to him the fifth canto of Marmion. He died on the 15th April 1815. The monument erected to his memory in the parish church of Gunning Hill, Berks, bears a fine inscription from the pen of Canning.
ELLIS, Sir Henry (1777–1869), a distinguished antiquarian writer, for many years principal librarian to the British Museum, was born in London of a Yorkshire family in 1777. He was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School, and at St John's College, Oxford, where he took his degree and obtained a fellowship. After having held for a few months a sub-librarianship in the Bodleian, he was appointed to a similar post in the British Museum in 1800. In 1827 he became chief librarian, and he discharged the duties of the office with great efficiency and urbanity until 1856, when he resigned on account of advancing age. During the reign of William IV. he was made a knight of Hanover. He died on the 15th January 1869. Sir Henry Ellis's life was one of very considerable literary activity. His first work of importance was the preparation of a new edition of Brand's Popular Antiquities, which appeared in 1813. In 1816 he was selected by the Commissioners of Public Records to write the introduction to Domesday Book, a task which he discharged with much learning, though several of his views have not stood the test of later criticism. His Original Letters Illustrative of English History (first series, 1824; second series, 1827) are compiled chiefly from manuscripts in the British Museum and the State Paper Office, and have been of considerable service to historical writers. To the Library of Entertaining Knowledge he contributed four volumes on the Elgin and Townley Marbles. Sir Henry was for many years joint-secretary of the Society of Antiquaries.
ELLIS, William (1794–1872), one of the most devoted and successful of modern missionaries, was born in London on the 29th August 1794. When he was about four years old his father, who was a working man, removed with his family to Wisbeach, where accordingly his boyhood was spent. His school education was even scantier than boys of his class at that time usually received, but being naturally bright and intelligent he did much to supply the deficiency by his own efforts. When about twelve years of age he was put to work with a market gardener. He showed an enthusiastic interest in gardening work, and continued to be engaged in it under various employers until 1814. In that year having come under serious religious impressions, he offered himself as a missionary to the London Missionary Society, and after due inquiry the offer was accepted. The year which was allowed him for training was devoted not merely to the study of theology at Homerton, but to the acquisition of various practical arts, such as printing and bookbinding, which proved of the utmost service to him in the mission field. Having been ordained he sailed for the South Sea Islands in January 1816, and reached his destination after a voyage of thirteen months' duration. He remained in Polynesia, occupying various stations in succession, until 1824, when he was compelled to return home on account of the state of his wife's health. Though the period of his residence in the islands was thus comparatively short, his labours were very fruitful, contributing perhaps as much as those of any other missionary to bring about the extraordinary improvement in the religious, moral, and social condition of the Southern Archipelago that has taken place during the present century. He was not only unwearied in his efforts to promote the immediate spiritual object of his mission, but he introduced many secondary aids to the improvement of the condition of the people. His gardening experience enabled him successfully to acclimatize many species of tropical fruits and plants, which now form an important source of wealth to the islanders; and he had the distinction of setting up and working the first printing-press in the South Seas. Ellis and his wife availed themselves for their journey home of an American vessel, which landed them free of all charge at New Bedford, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1825. They remained for some months in the United States, where they were exceedingly well received, and Ellis excited much interest in the mission with which he was connected by attending numerous public meetings held in support of its claims. For several years after his return to England, he was employed as a travelling agent of the London Missionary Society, whose schemes he explained and advocated in nearly every important town of the United Kingdom. In the midst of this busy life he found time to publish his
Tour through Hawaii (1826), which had been written in the course of his journey home, and his
Polynesian Researches (2 vols, 1829), a work which Southey in the
Quarterly Review characterized as one of the most interesting he had ever read. In 1832 he was appointed foreign secretary to the London Missionary Society, the state of his wife's health rendering the long cherished prospect of a return to the South Seas hopeless. He discharged the duties of the office with great efficiency for seven years, when threatened cerebral disease compelled him to resign it. In the interval his first wife had died, and he had married in 1837 Miss Sarah Stickney, authoress of
The Poetry of Life, The Women of England, and many other well-known works. Just before resigning the secretaryship he published his
History of Madagascar, and thus first established between his name and that island a connection which was destined to be honourable and enduring in no common degree. After a season spent in Pau, of which Mrs Ellis has given a most interesting account in her
Summer and Winter in the Pyrenees, Mr Ellis and his wife returned to England in 1841, and took up their residence in a beautiful country house at Rose Hill, Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire. Here he continued to show unabated interest and almost unabated activity in the business of the Society with which he had been in one capacity or another so long connected. By desire of the directors he undertook a history of the society, the first volume of which appeared in 1844, though pressure of other work prevented its completion. In 1847 he accepted the pastorate of the little congregational church at Hoddesdon, which had been revived and strengthened mainly through his exertions. After a few years his quiet life was interrupted by a call from the London Missionary Society to proceed to
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