ELLIS, GEORGE (1753-1815), English author, was edu cated at Westminster school and at Trinity college, Cambridge. He contributed to the Rolliad and the Probationary Odes satires against Pitt's administration. In 1797 he went to Lille as secre tary to the embassy. He continued to write political satires in the Anti-Jacobin, which he founded with George Canning and William Gifford. For some years before the Anti-Jacobin was started Ellis had been studying Early English literature, in which he was one of the first to arouse interest. He rendered a very great ser vice to English literature by his Specimens of the Early English Poets (179o) and his Specimens of Early English Metrical Ro mances (1805). He also edited G. L. Way's translation of select Fabliaux in 1796. Ellis was an intimate friend of Sir Walter Scott, who styled him "the first converser I ever saw." Some of the cor respondence between them is to be found in Lockhart's Life.