xx BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 



ship of Civil Law. He acknowledged to me that he would 

 have felt gratified by the tenure of this office, which is the more 

 remarkable when taken in connection with the fact that on the 

 occasion of one of the Mathematical Professorships being vacant 

 he expressed no desire to be appointed, but, on the contrary, 

 declared that he would not consent to be nominated as a candi- 

 date. Indeed it is a mistake to suppose that Ellis was in any 

 exclusive or even preponderating degree devoted to mathematics : 

 his mathematical power was no doubt very great, but I think 

 not greater than several other powers, and certainly his taste by 

 no means exclusively leaned in this direction, as his intimate 

 friends very well knew. But of this more hereafter. 



He did not give himself in any degree to tuition during his 

 Cambridge residence. So far as I know he never had a private 

 pupil ; he gave a few College Lectures upon high mathematical 

 subjects, but he did this only as locum-tenens for friends upon 

 whom the task devolved. Probably his health would have 

 interfered with any regular occupation of this kind ; but besides 

 this, he had not, I think, any taste or any special fitness for 

 imparting knowledge to average minds; his remarks were 

 always suggestive, and he could throw light upon almost any 

 subject which could be brought forward, but he usually assumed 

 a considerable amount of knowledge on the part of those with 

 whom he conversed, and sometimes (as it seemed to me) he was 

 obscure, in consequence perhaps of the neatness and conciseness 

 which were so remarkable in his conversation. 



At the request of the British Association, which held its 

 annual meeting at Cambridge in 1845, he undertook a Eeport 

 upon the progress of certain branches of pure mathematics. 

 This Report is reprinted in the present volume. It represents a 

 great amount of labour and research, and I have no doubt that 

 the preparation of it was a source of pleasure to him, as it 

 refers to a department of mathematics which was with Ellis 

 a special favourite. 



