THE LATE PROFESSOR ROBINSON ELLIS.
ITO THZ EDITOR 07 THE " SPECTAT0R...1
SIR,—By the death of Robinson Ellis England has lost the, greatest of her Latin scholars since the "going hence" of Munro and of Mayor. What the distinguished trio, Lightfoot, Westcott, Hort, were to English theology, Mayor, Ellis, and. Munro were to Latin scholarship. Ellis was one of the very few English scholars whose names were thoroughly familiar to Continental critics. His reputation was high in Germany, and the fact that he was asked to contribute an edition of Orientius to the great Vienna Cmpus sufficiently marked the estimation in which he was held abroad, But Ellis was nob only a master of Latin ; his knowledge of Greek was consider- able, as his notes and conjectures on Aristotle's Holtsrcia, Bacchylides, and Herondas testify. His books and pamphlets- by no means exhausted his contributions to criticism. The pages of the "Journal of Philology," "The American Journal, of Philology," the "Classical Review," and " Hermathena " bear eloquent witness to his unrivalled erudition. His kind- ness even to obscure students was remarkable. I remember how readily he helped me when some years ago I was prepay- ing an edition of the "Heracles of Euripides" for publication. Yet I was totally unknown to him. It must ever be a great disappointment that Ellis lavished his immense learning on obscure writers like Avianus or Merobaudes, instead of giving us—what he might so worthily have done—a really adequate edition of Claudian, a writer now almost forgotten except by. specialists. It is to be hoped that a volume of " Adversaria," embodying Ellis's most mature work, may be issued by his. literary executors. At present so much of this is hidden away in fugitive pamphlets, periodicals, and the like.—I am, Sir, &c..
Previous page
