Samuel Allyne was his youngest son. Of the daughters, Mercy, the eldest, married General James Warren of Plymouth, and Mary married Mr. John Gray, the other daughters died unmarried.

His employment in public stations was affected in a very considerable degree, by the course followed by his celebrated son. He was at one period a Justice of the Common Pleas and Judge of Probate, joining to these offices that of Colonel of the Militia, as his father had done before him. Colonel Otis, as he was generally called, was several times negatived as a Councillor, by Governor Bernard; but being constantly rechosen, was afterwards approved by Governor Hutchinson, and sat at the Council Board during the first years of the war. He died in the

month of November 1778.

James Otis, the eldest son of Colonel James Otis of Barnstable, descended in the fifth generation from John Otis, the first of the name in this country, was born in the family mansion at Great Marshes, in what is now called West Barnstable, the 5th day of February 1724-5. His father, having always regretted his own want of a classical education, was the more anxious that his children should have every opportunity to secure all its advantages. His son therefore was prepared for college under the care of the Rev. Jonathan Russell, the clergyman of the parish, and entered at Cambridge in June, 1739 During the two first years of his college life, his natural ardour and vivacity made his society much courted by the elder students, and engaged him

more in amusement than in study; but he changed his course in the junior year, and though yet in his boyhood, began thenceforward to give indications of great talent and power of application. He took the degree of A. B. in 1743, and that of A. M. in due course, three years afterwards. The only record of his having any part in the public college exercises, is that of a syllogistic disputation on receiving his first degree.

The period is past when any traits of his youth can be known from personal observation. All the persons who might have cherished in their memory such incidents of his early years, as at that period often indicate the future character of eminent men, have paid the debt of nature. The few traditions that can now be gleaned are extremely scanty. At school, and at college excepting his first two years, he was serious in his habits and steady in application. When he came home from the latter during the vacations, he was so devoted to his books, that he was seldom seen, and the near neighbours to his father's dwelling would sometimes only remark his return, after he had been at home a fortnight. Though enveloped in his studies, and marked with some of the gravity and abstraction, natural to severe application, he would occasionally discover the wit and humour, which formed afterwards striking ingredients in his character. A small party of young people being assembled one day at his father's house, when he was at home during a college vacation, he had taken a slight part in their sports, when

after much persuasion, they induced him to play a country dance for them with his violin, on which instrument he then practised a little. The set was made up, and after they were fairly engaged, he suddenly stopped and holding up his fiddle and bow, exclaimed "So Orpheus fiddled, and so danced the brutes!" and then tossing aside the instrument, rushed into the garden, followed by the disappointed revellers, who were obliged to convert their intended dance, into a frolicksome chase after the fugitive musician.

Chapter XX.

His Preparation for the Study of Law--Letter on that SubjectHis Entrance into the Profession-Literary Pursuits-Two Private Letters-His Marriage and Family--Professional Anecdotes.

AFTER leaving college in 1743, Otis devoted eighteen months to the pursuit of various branches of literature, previously to entering on the study of jurisprudence. He always regretted that he had not given a longer time to the acquisition of general knowledge, before he directed his attention exclusively to reading law. The learning he acquired in this preparatory study, was afterwards of the greatest use to him. He inculcated on his pupils as a

maxim, "that a lawyer ought never to be without a volume of natural or public law, or moral philosophy, on his table, or in his pocket.” His own expressions in the following letter, will place this subject in a strong light: though only a sketch of the advantages resulting from the course he recommends, yet they are ably stated and come from him with peculiar weight. The letter was addressed to his father, on the subject of his younger brother* Samuel Allyne Otis studying law. It was written in 1760, and may be inserted here appropriately, though it is anticipating the regular course of dates. In conversing with his brother on the subject of this study and speaking of the books in this science and its modern improvements, he told him, " that Blackstone's Commentaries would have saved him seven years labour poring over and delving in black let

ter."

"It is with sincerest pleasure I find my brother Samuel has well employed his time during his residence at home, I am sure you don't think the time long he is spending in his present course of studies, since it is past all doubt they are not only ornamental and useful, but indispensably necessary preparatorys for the figure I hope one day, for his and your sake, as well as my own, to see him make in the

* Samuel Allyne Otis took his degree of A. B. at Harvard University in 1759. He became a merchant; and at the first organization of the Federal Government, he was chosen Secretary of the Senate of the United States, which office he held through all the changes of parties till his death in 1814. The Hon. Harrison Gray Otis, now of the Senate of the United States, is his eldest son.

profession, he is determined to pursue. I am sure the year and a half I spent in the same way, after leaving the academy, was as well spent as any part of my life; and I shall always lament that I did not take a year or two further for more general inquiries in the arts and sciences, before I sat down to the laborious study of the laws of my country. My brother's judgment can't at present be supposed to be ripe enough for so severe an exercise, as the proper reading and well digesting the common law. Very sure I am, if he should stay a year or two from the time of his degree, before he begins with the law, he will be able to make a better progress in one week, than he could now, without a miracle, in six. Early and short clerkships and a premature rushing into practice, without a competent knowledge in the theory of law, have blasted the hopes of, (and ruined the expectations formed by the parents of) most of the students in the profession, who have fell within my observation for these ten or fifteen years past."

"I hold it to be of vast importance that a young man should be able to make some eclat at his opening, which it is in vain to expect from one under twenty five: missing of this is very apt to discourage and dispirit him, and what is of worse consequence, may prevent the application of clients ever after. It has been observed before I was born, if a man don't obtain a character in any profession soon after his first appearance, he hardly will ever obtain one. The bulk of mankind, I need not inform you, who