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Life
?1810-1879 [var. Eyles PI]; b. Dublin, ed. TCD, lawyer; ed., anthologies, second series of Songs of Ireland (Duffy 1849), the first being completed by M. J. Barry; also The Romances and Ballads of Ireland (1850), which contains many poems of Mangan; The Rhyme Book (1851), 800pp., which he sent to the Great Exhibition, where it was only noticed for its striking layout and binding; in the Preface, Ellis speaks of what is characteristic of the ‘Irish imagination’; the pale green pages and decorated margins of this work are artistically adorned with crests of the Prince of Wales (Honi Soi &c.); bur. Mount St. Jerome; Ellis occurs very frequently as an anthologist of note in DJ. O’Donghue’s Poets of Ireland (1912) and has an entry to himself - not perhaps as happy as the subject of the sketch might wish [see infra]. RR PI RAF OCIL
Works
Ed., The Songs of Ireland [2nd series] (Dublin: Duffy; London: Simpkin 1849), xviii+288pp.; Romances and Ballads of Ireland [...] (Dublin: Purdon 1850) [var. Duffy], xxxi+432pp.; The Rhyme Book (Dublin: Duffy; London: Longman, Green 1851), 712pp. SEE also Irish Book Lover 8.
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Commentary
M. J. Barry, Songs of Ireland (Dublin: James Duffy 1845) [23 Anglesea St.]; sole appendix contains text of letter from Hercules Ellis [229-38] contesting the authorship of ‘Exile of Erin’, claimed by Mr. Campbell, Barry finding that ‘the facts stated by Mr Ellis, and so solemnly attested, scare have room for any one not doubting their veracity ... to come to any decision creditable to the fame of Mr Campbell. [229] Ellis claims that Gerald Nugent Reynolds compose the song from a letter written by United Irishman John Cormick to his br. Michael; ‘I have at intervals, for many years, endeavoured to disprove the claim of authorship set up by Mr Campbell, and to restore to Ireland the fame of having produced this Queen of Songs’; Campbell counterclaimed in The Times, 17 June 1830; Campbell’s claim that he composed it in 1801 is challenged by the fact that the song was known and taught in the Belfast Sch. of Music in Nov. 1798, and acknowledged as the work of Reynolds.
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References
D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1912) - O’Donoghue devotes considerable space to Ellis’s leading role in propagating the idea that Reynolds, not Campbell, was the author of “Exile of Erin” - viz.: ‘ELLIS, HERCULES. — The Rhyme Book, London, 18ol, 8vo; and edited Romances and Ballads of Ireland, Dublin, 1850, 12mo; and Songs of Ireland, second series (edited by him), Dublin, 1849, 12mo. Both the latter collections contain a large number of his own poems, all given anonymously. “The Rhyme Book“ is a collected edition of all his own pieces, and he claims originality for them. One of them — “Songs”— has been attributed to Dermody by various editors of Irish anthologies by mistake, owing to the way it is placed in “Songs of Ireland,” next to a piece by Dermody. “The Rhyme Book” is a massive work of 800 pages, and every page has a designed border. Ellis sent it to the great Exhibition of 1851, and evidently expected his poetry to be commended; but the matter-of-fact jurors took note only of the “get-up” of the book, and thereby offended the poet, who carried on a wordy correspondence with them. Their letter to him was addressed, to his deep disgust, “To Mr. Hercules Ellis, bookbinder.” He was born in Dublin about 1810; graduated B.A., T.C.D., 1828; M.A, 1832; and died on August 29, 1879, and was buried in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin, in the family grave. In 1844 he published anonymously in Dublin a pamphlet entitled “Memoranda of Irish Matters,” in which he endeavoured to prove that George Nugent Reynolds, and not Campbell, was the true author of “The Exile of Erin.” In the appendix to Barry’s “Songs of Ireland” he also puts forward this idea, but Barry afterwards regretted allowing him to take up space for such a purpose. Ellis contributed a poem or two to Kottabos in his later years. He was a barrister by profession.’ (End; Poets of Ireland, p.132.)
Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic Period, 1789-1850 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), Vol. I; cites Songs of Ireland [1849] as the collection including poems of Mangan, and lists Duffy as publisher (Irish Literature in English, Vol. 2, 1980, p.266). NOTE, McKenna (Irish Literature, 1978), cites Songs of Ireland [2nd series] (1849).
Belfast Public Library holds The Rhyme Book; also [Barry, ed.,] The Songs of Ireland (1849).
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