ELLIS, WILLIAM, an eminent English missionary, was b. in the year 1795. In Jan., 1816, he sailed with his wife for the South Sea islands, as a missionary of the London missionary society, and labored there for nearly ten years. He set up in Tahiti the first printing-press in the South Sea islands. In 1824, he returned to England, on account of the illness of his wife. He was for some years employed at home in the business of the London missionary society. In 1826, he published a Narrative of a Tour through Owhyhee; and in 1829, Polynesian Researches, 2 vols. In 1839, he published a History of Madagascar, 2 vols., compiled from government papers, and information received from missionaries. In 1835, his wife died, and two years afterwards he married Miss Sarah Stickney, who for many years conducted a school for girls at Hoddesdon, in Hertford shire, and who is well known as the authoress of many popular works, among which are The Women of England (1838), The Daughters of England (1842), The TT' ives of England (1843), Hearts and Homes (1848-49), and The Mothers of Great Men (1859). Her works are all of an excellent moral and religious tendency, and have been very widely circulated both in Britain and America. She was educated among the Society of Friends, to which
her parents belonged.—In 1853, /Hr. E. was sent to Madagascar by the London mission ary society, to inquire into the state of things in that island, and particularly into the condition and prospects of the Christians there. In 1859, he published an interesting and valuable work, entitled Three Visits to Madagascar, during 1853-56, with Notices of the Peo ple, Natural History, etc., a work to which we are largely indebted for our present infor mation concerning that island. In his Polynesian Researches, as well as in this work, Mr. E. gives much information concerning the inhabitants, scenery, and productions of the countries which he visited, and few works of greater general interest or higher value have come from the pens of modern missionaries. In 1867, he published another work, the nature of which appears from its title, Madagascar Revisited, describing the Events of a New Reign, and the Revolution which followed, setting forth also the Persecutions endured by the Christians, and their Heroic Sufferings, with Notices of the Present State and Prospects of the People. He died in 1872.