George Ellis,[37] on the other hand, was distinguished by an eighteenth-century urbanity, and his combination of learning and good taste fitted him to influence a broader public than that of specialists.

At the same time he was a delightful and stimulating friend to other scholars.

Southey was becoming known as an authority on the history and literature of the Spanish peninsula.

A review in the _Quarterly_ a dozen years later mentions these three,--Ellis, Scott, and Southey,--as "good men and true" to serve as guides in the remote realms of literature.[38] Ellis's friend, John Hookham Frere, had great abilities but was an incurable dillettante.
Scott particularly admired a Middle-English version of _The Battle of Brunanburgh_ which Frere wrote in his school-boy days, and considered him an authoritative critic of mediaeval English poetry.

Robert Surtees[39] and Francis Douce[40] were antiquaries of some importance, and both, like all the others named, were friends of Scott.