Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/302

 , for he soon added to his income by frequently travelling as an agent for seeds and seller of farming implements; in short he was ready to execute any sort of country business at a fixed price. Many eager farmers, led hy his fame and his books, proceeded to visit Ellis's farm, but found, to their surprise and disappointment, that he did not carry out any of the views which he advocated in print, that his implements were old-fashioned, and that his land was neglected and in bad condition. This report, speedily reacted on the sale of his books. They had introduced many new methods of treating manure, sheep and turnips, and lucerne, but now their reputation began to decline. Ellis perceived with sorrow that he was outliving his fame.

The success which his work on timber obtained (it ran through three editions in less than three years) tempted Osborne, the book-seller, to engage him as a writer, and Ellis produced with much fecundity volume after volume. Gradually he advanced to monthly works and more voluminous productions, in which, to fill up his stipulated number of pages, he was driven to introduce those ridiculous anecdotes and unnecessary details which have so much marred his writings. So long as Ellis proceeded according to his own rule (Preface to Farriery), 'I always considered experience as the only touchstone of truth, and by that unerring rule every particular here advanced has been sufficiently tried,' all was well, and his books were valued accordingly. But the editor of his last book was compelled before printing it to exclude many foolish stories of gipsies, thieves, and the like, also many absurd nostrums and receipts, evidently only inserted to fill space. Ellis's books have become useless, from the advance in agricultural science.

Ellis's works consist of:
 * 1) 'Chiltern and Vale Farming,' 1733.
 * 2) 'New Experiments in Husbandry for the Month of April,' 1736.
 * 3) 'The Timber-Tree Improved,' 1738. These last two are tracts.
 * 4) 'The Shepherd's Sure Guide,' 1749; full of fatuous anecdotes of sheep and dogs.
 * 5) 'The Modern Husbandman,' 8 vols., 1750. This treats of the farmer's year month by month and of rural ecionomy in general; it is Ellis's best work, though such a sentence as 'Be yourself the first man up in a morning for sounding at your door your harvest horn to call your men at four o'clock,' contrasts amusingly with the writer's own practice according to those who went to visit him at Little Gaddesden.
 * 6) 'The Country House wife's Family Companion,' 1750.
 * 7) 'The Practical Farmer,' 1769; an abbreviation of No. 5.
 * 8) 'Every Farmer his own Farrier,' 1769.
 * 9) 'Husbandry Abridged and Methodized,' 2 vols., 1772.



ELLIS, WILLIAM (1794–1872), missionary, born in London 29 Aug. 1794, of parents in straitened circumstances, was bred a gardener, but, coming under deep religious impressions, offered himself as a foreign missionary to the London Missionary Society; was accepted, trained, and ordained in 1816 for the office, and appointed first to South Africa, but afterwards to the South Sea Islands. Leaving England in 1816, along with his wife, he arrived in 1817 at Eimeo, one of the Georgian or Windward islands, and in the following year commenced a new mission at Hushine. In 1822 he removed to Oahu, one of the Sandwich group, but had to leave it owing to his wife's health; returned to England in 1825, visiting America by the way. As a Polynesian missionary he combined great spiritual earnestness with mechanical skill, and likewise with a profound interest in scientific and antiquarian research. While in England he published a 'Tour through Hawaii,' and thereafter his 'Polynesian Researches.' The 'Researches' excited great interest; the book was reviewed in the 'Quarterly Review' by Southey, whose judgment was given in the words, 'A more interesting book we have never perused.' The publication of this work went far to redeem the character of missionaries in the eyes of some who had thought of them all as ignorant and narrow-minded men. In 1830 he was appointed assistant foreign secretary to the London Missionary Society, and soon after chief foreign secretary. Among other literary employments he became editor of an annual called 'The Christian Keepsake,' which brought him into connection with many literary friends.

His first wife having died in 1835 after many years of great suffering, he married in 1837 Miss Sarah Stickney, a lady who acquired considerable literary fame, chiefly in connection with a work entitled 'The Poetry of Life,' and works on the women of England in their various relations. Miss Stickney had been brought up a member of the Society of Friends, but not caring to accept all their principles and rules, she had left that body and become a member of the congregational church. Her husband and she enjoyed five-and-thirty years of married life, marked by great congeniality of taste and pursuit, both in religion and general culture. The list of her books appended to this notice attests the variety of her accomplishments