* ELLIS, Sir Henry, K.H., many years principal librarian of the British museum, is the descendant of an old respectable Yorkshire family. Born in London in 1777, and educated at Merchant Taylor's school, he graduated at St. John's college, Oxford; and, having held the sub-librarianship of the Bodleian library at Oxford for a few months in 1827, was appointed in that year to the chief librarianship of the British museum, which he resigned in 1856. Sir Henry was many years joint secretary of the Society of Antiquaries, of which he is now director. His contributions to literature include several volumes in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, on the "Elgin and Townley Marbles;" "Letters Illustrative of English History;" besides indexes and an introduction to the Doomsday Survey, and to the last edition of Dugdale's Monasticon.—E. W.
ELLIS, Henry, M.R.S.L., was an English navigator of the eighteenth century. He accompanied as agent of committee. Captains Moor and Smith, in an expedition which sailed from Gravesend in 1746. The object was to explore the northern seas with a view to discovering the north-west passage. Ellis's commission instructed him to direct his attention chiefly to the geography and natural history of the latitudes visited by the expedition. The ships, two in number, had been absent little more than a year, when accumulating hardships determined the commanders, contrary to the agent's advice, to return to England. Whatever success attended the attempt was due entirely to Ellis. This consisted in limiting and defining rather than extending the geographical knowledge of the time. In his published narrative of the expedition, he explains his reasons for still believing that the sought-for passage existed. In return for his services, he was appointed governor of New York, and afterwards of Georgia; but the failure of his health brought him again to Europe. He spent the latter years of his life on the continent, where he seems to have died during the first decade of the present century.—D. M.
ELLIS, John, an English poet, was born in London, on the 22nd March, 1698. He got little education but what he picked up casually, and in early life was apprenticed to a scrivener, to whose business he eventually succeeded. This, however, did not prevent him from paying much attention to literary pursuits, or from enjoying the society of the literary men of his day. Dr. Samuel Johnson was his intimate friend. He wrote many poems, and, what is more remarkable, showed no strong desire to publish them. In 1791, at a very advanced age, he died, leaving behind him numerous manuscripts, and some printed poems in Dodsley's Collection, such as the "Cheat's Apology," which was set to music and sung at Vauxhall; "Tartana, or the Pladdie;" and some others.—J. B. J.
ELLIS, John, a distinguished English naturalist, who lived in the eighteenth century. He was born in 1710, and died in London on the 5th of October, 1776. Although engaged in business as a merchant, he found time to devote himself to the study of the lower forms of marine animals, and in his "Essay towards a Natural History of Corallines," has not only raised an imperishable monument to his genius and industry, but has shown the world that a life of devotion to business is not incompatible with the profoundest scientific researches. It was Ellis who first demonstrated the true nature of that group of animals, now called zoophytes; and to him we owe a number of other valuable contributions to science which appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the last century. He also made observations on plants, and wrote a paper on the curious Venus' fly-trap (Dionæa muscipula), on the history of the coffee plant, and on the method of bringing seeds from a distance.—E. L.
* ELLIS, William, was born in the suburbs of London in 1800. His father was a merchant, and he engaged in the same line of life, with such success that at the age of twenty-six he was appointed manager of the marine insurance office, a situation he still retains, and whose duties he has discharged so well as to mark it out as one of the best-conducted establishments of the kind in London. To this practical tact in the management of business, Mr. Ellis has united a spirit of philosophical inquiry with regard to the principles on which alone it can be soundly based. His study of political economy was further stimulated by his copying for Mr. Tooke the manuscript of his work on Prices. The accumulation of facts contained in that book might have tended rather to increase than solve the difficulties of a young student like Mr. Ellis, had it not been that he was fortunate enough to number among his friends the late James Mills, whose luminous views powerfully assisted him in these early inquiries. Neither books nor authorities of any kind, however, in the opinion of Mr. Ellis, were sufficient to supersede personal investigation, and his position, as actually engaged in commercial life, gave him great advantages for treating political economy as strictly an experimental science. In successive commercial panics he watched the working of parliamentary enactments regarding banking and the currency, and with the same interest he observed the effect of all the great strikes of workmen, who, ignorant of the first principles of the science which he was studying, vainly sought by such means to improve their condition. Feeling deeply the misery to which such ignorance led, Mr. Ellis was induced to endeavour to remove it, both by personal instruction, and by publishing a work on the subject, entitled "Progressive Lessons." By placing the subject in a life-like form before his pupils, to try his power of drawing out their minds in its investigation, he succeeded in thoroughly interesting them, as well as in satisfying himself that the principles of social science might be made attractive even to the young. Acting upon this conviction, he established schools, in which it was one of the main branches taught. With the exception of the one in the London Mechanics' Institute, the Birbeck schools were all established, and the largest one erected, solely at his own expense. Besides, by his instruction of teachers and his published works, he has given an impetus to the study of political economy throughout the country; many of the most distinguished promoters of education concurring in his views. His principal works, in addition to the one already mentioned, are—"The Outlines of Social Economy;" "Introduction to the Study of the Social Sciences;" "Outlines of the History and Formation of the Understanding;" "Questions and Answers suggested by a Consideration of some of the Arrangements of Social Life;" "The Phenomena of Industrial Life;" and "Progressive Lessons in Social Science." Besides these, he has written some pamphlets and contributed various articles to the Westminster.—J. B. J.
* ELLIS, Rev. William, is widely and favourably known as a zealous and successful missionary. In 1815, having become an agent of the London Missionary Society, he sailed for the scene of his future labours—the South Sea Islands. Before leaving, he united himself in marriage to Miss Mary Mercy, a young lady whose whole heart was in the work to which her husband had devoted himself. They embarked at Portsmouth, and on January 22d, 1816, sailed from Spithead, and were thirteen months at sea before they reached their destination, having on their way called at New South Wales, New Zealand, and Tahiti. After labouring for some years in these islands, they removed to the principal one of the Sandwich group, called Hawaii or Owhyhee. The remarkable change that has passed over the barbarous people of the great southern archipelago is the best evidence of the value of the labours of Mr. Ellis and his fellow-missionaries. At length Mr. and Mrs. Ellis were compelled to turn their faces homewards, on account of the failing health of the latter. An American vessel took them on board in October, 1824, and landed them free of all charge at New Bedford, Massachusetts, in March of the following year. The American people showed them much attention, and public meetings were held to advocate the missionary cause. They reached England in August, 1825, when Mr. Ellis was employed in the home business of the London Missionary Society. On the 18th January, 1835, Mrs. Ellis died, when her husband published a deeply interesting memoir of her. Mr. Ellis afterwards married Miss Sarah Stickney, a lady who, both under her maiden name and that of Mrs. Ellis, is known as the author of many useful and entertaining works, such as—"Pictures of Private Life;" "Family Secrets, or Hints to those who would make home happy;" "The Women of England;" "The Mothers of England;" "The Daughters of England;" "A Voice from the Vintage;" and "Summer and Winter in the Pyrenees"—which last was the fruit of a visit to Pau, made by Mr. and Mrs. Ellis, to recruit the health of the former. They now reside at Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, where Mrs. Ellis superintends a school for young ladies. The educational and other training which is there given, and the manner in which it is given, she has fully and clearly explained under the form of letters to a friend in a small pamphlet entitled "Rawdon House." Mr. Ellis recently visited Madagascar, having been sent thither by the London Missionary Society on a tour of observation. He has published several valuable and interesting works, among which are his "Polynesian
