George Ellis (poet)

George Ellis FRS FSA (19 December 1753 – 10 April 1815) was a Jamaican-born English antiquary, satirical poet and Member of Parliament. He is best known for his Specimens of the Early English Poets and Specimens of Early English Metrical Romances, which played an influential part in acquainting the general reading public with Middle English poetry.

George Ellis was born in Jamaica on 19 December 1753, the posthumous son of a sugar-planter. His grandfather, also called George Ellis, was Chief Justice of Jamaica, and Edward Long, author of The History of Jamaica, was a maternal uncle. He was brought to England in 1755, and according to the ODNB educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He soon made a name for himself in Whig society as a young man of wit, charm and literary talent. Ellis published two volumes of light verse, Bath; Its Beauties and Amusements (1777) and Poetical Tales of Gregory Gander (1778), which gained great popularity not just in the English beau monde but even at Versailles, where Horace Walpole noted that Ellis was "a favourite". He went on to contribute to the anti-Pitt satirical work, The Rolliad (1784–85).

In 1784, he was employed as an aide by his friend the Whig diplomat Sir James Harris (later Lord Malmesbury), with whom he travelled widely on the Continent. Taking advantage of his experience of diplomacy, he produced two prose works: Memoir of a Map of the Countries Comprehended between the Black Sea and the Caspian, published anonymously in 1788, but almost certainly by Ellis; and The History of the Dutch Revolution (1789), which had the unusual distinction of being translated into French by the future king Louis XVIII. In 1793, Malmesbury turned Tory and entered Pitt's government, and Ellis followed him, becoming a close friend of the rising young politician George Canning. Ellis was elected in 1796 as an MP for both Westbury and Seaford, and chose to sit for Seaford. However, he is not known to have spoken in the House of Commons. In 1796 and 1797, he assisted Malmesbury in peace negotiations with France. On his return to England, he joined Canning and William Gifford in founding the Tory newspaper The Anti-Jacobin, and was a frequent contributor of satirical pieces to it. In 1801 he married Anne, daughter of Admiral Sir Peter Parker, but they had no children. In the general election of the following year, he declined to stand, perhaps because of increasing ill-health, and he never again stood for Parliament.

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