which the boys scrambled! He then went to the Latin School, which was in School-street. The master, Mr. Lovell, was a worthy old gentleman; but there had been a sort of rivalry between the Latin and the writing schools, which was the cause of several curious doggerel effusions on the part of the boys, some extracts of which were repeated by Mr. Otis with humorous effect.

Forty years ago, continued Mr. Otis, the place where this school was built was a mill-pond. The tide flowed into it to the depth of ten or twelve feet. There was then no expectation that a school-house would ever be erected on this spot. There were "schools" of fishes here, but there was no schoolmaster, except the successor of St. Anthony, who, it was said, could preach to the fishes. Mr. Otis said he was entirely inadequate to describe the great advantages which the children of the present day had over the boys and girls of his time. What did they learn then? A few Latin roots to squeeze them into college, and mere ciphering. They had then none of those advantages which he now saw. There was not then that group of learned teachers, who were deserving of the thanks of the country. He spoke with great veneration of those who had lived in his time; but he did not think it was any disparagement to their memory to say that they were not to be compared to the instructors of the present day. He commended them to their teachers, and their teachers to them; and he prayed them to be satisfied of the great advantages which they enjoyed, and to improve the opportunity which was afforded to them of becoming good and enlightened citizens. He hoped that, as the school had been called after him, they would remember him in their good will; and he more affectionately and fervently commended them-teachers and pupils to the care and protection of their Maker.

In connection with this period in the youth of Otis, we have a reminiscence, finely woven in his own charming language. "Barnstable," says he, "was not only the place of the birth and residence of my immediate ancestors for four generations, but it afforded to my childhood an asylum from the storms of war, and a retreat for my peaceful studies, during the siege of Boston. I had been there but a few weeks before the news arrived of the conflagration of Charlestown. This came to us not in the shape which it has since assumed, of a real victory, though nominal defeat; but with the unmitigated horrors of conflagration and massacre, and as a specimen of the mode in which our peaceful villages were intended to be swept with the fire and sword.

"I was placed at school," continues Mr. Otis, "with the admirable pastor, Mr. Hilliard, of the east parish, where I passed my time from Mondays to Saturdays. On the last day of the week, I was sent for and conveyed to the patriarchal mansion, and attended on Sundays the religious instructions of the pious and venerable Mr. Shaw. In these weekly journeyings, I became familiar with the location of every house and building between my points of departure, and with the younger inmates of many of them; and I feel as if I could jot down the principal part of them upon a plan of the road. Barnstable was not only the scene of my earliest friendship, but of my first love. I became enamored of a very charming young person, nearly of my own age,- but the course of this love did not run smoothly. In an innocent ramble over the fields and hedges with her and other young persons, she had the misfortune to lose a necklace of genuine gold beads: the fault was neither hers nor mine, but of the string on which they were threaded; but still, as real mint-drops were in that day very valuable, and treasurynotes greatly on the decline, the circumstance brought me into some discredit with the family, as accessory to a loss which impaired the faculty of resuming specie payments when the time should arrive, and resulted in a future non-intercourse." The mother of young Otis, in a letter to her father, while in this seclusion, speaking of him, says, "I shall enclose you a letter from Harry, of his own writing and inditing, which will enable you to form some judgment of his genius, which, his tutor tells me, is very uncommon.'

Young Otis graduated at Harvard College in 1783, when but eighteen years of age, receiving the highest honors of a class among whom were William Prescott, Artemas Ward, and Ambrose Spencer. At that period, his young friends warmly conceded that the mantle of his eloquent uncle, James Otis, had encircled him, for he was greatly admired for brilliant and graceful oratory:

-Otis rises like a vernal morn,

Clear, brilliant, sweet, in nature's gifts arrayed,
Where not a cloud obtrudes its devious shade."

Here we will again recur to the sprightly and delightful remembrance of Mr. Otis in relation to this period, contained in his letter read at the centennial celebration of Harvard University, Sept. 8, 1836. "It is now fifty-three years since I first received the honors of the university. The surviving number of my fellow-classmates is very small.

To those of us who are present-'remnant of ourselves' - these years probably appear like the tale that is told.' My own career, through the long period, seems, in the retrospect, like a rapid journey through a path beset with flowers and thorns; the wounds received from the latter remaining, while the color and fragrance of the former are gone forever. In the year in which I was graduated, the commencement was preceded by the acknowledgment of independence and the treaty of peace, and the English oration was assigned to me. You will naturally presume that the event, adapted to enkindle enthusiasm in an orator of the gravest character and age, would stimulate the fervid imagination of eighteen to paint in somewhat gorgeous colors the prospects unfolded to our country by this achievement of its liberties, and its probable effect upon the destinies of other nations. I remember that I did so, and indulged the impulse of a sanguine temperament in building what doubtless seemed to others, and perhaps to myself, castles in the air. But, had it been in my imagination to conceive, and in my power to describe, what we now know to be a reality, I should have been considered as ballooning in the regions of bombast, and appeared ridiculously aiming to be sublime."

Mr. Otis, in the same admirable epistle, of which we cite only a part, makes very shrewd remarks on the great topic of education. "It is of incomparably less moment," says he, "that a few persons should wear the gown of the scholar, than that the great body of the community should be clad in the costume of fixed principles. But one cannot flourish without the other. Unless a due proportion of the people be educated in universities and colleges, learning must run wild. There might be plenty of itinerant orators and preachers to the dear people, and of political sportsmen to set man-traps for straggling patriots. It is vain to say 'the schoolmaster is abroad,' unless he is qualified for his vocation. When the schoolmaster has been educated at a university, or has otherwise, by means of instruction from scholars, become fit for the calling, then, indeed, he goes abroad a most respectable and interesting member of an honorable profession, implanting the seeds of religion and of morality, private and public, wherever he goes. Without these, he travels, like a pedler, with bundles of trashy pamphlets and orations on his back, scattering his miserable wares through all the cottages and workshops and kitchens in the country, defrauding the humble purchasers. It is from the colleges that the wants of the legislatures, the pulpits, the courts and the school, can be most effectu

ally supplied. They are the mints in which the genuine bullion is kept, and the pure coin stamped. The pulpit, the press and the school, are the banks of deposit, whence it is circulated; and, without frequent recurrence to the standards kept in the mints, they will put in circulation base coin and rag money, to the confusion and destruction of the sound currency. Let us cultivate and adhere to the principles taught here, and not trust to the promises of the conductors on the modern intellectual railroad, to grade and level the hills of science, and to take us along at rates that will turn our heads and break our bones. Let us eschew the vagaries and notions of the new schools, and let each of us be reminded of a quotation which Burke did not think unworthy of him, and be ready to say,

• What though the flattering tapster Thomas
Hangs his new angel two doors from us,
As fine as painter's daub can make it,
Thinking some traveller may mistake it?
I hold it both a shame and sin

To quit the good old Angel Inn.' "'

On the year previous to graduating at college, Mr. Otis had an impressive interview with his noble uncle, the great advocate; and as it was the last period of intercourse with him, we will quote his own words: "I brought James Otis in a gig from Andover to Boston, in the year 1782, at a period when my father and his friends thought he was recovered. Nothing could be more delightfully instructive than his conversation on the journey, but it was in reference chiefly to the study of my profession, which it was intended I should pursue under his patronage. But I went back to college. He remained at home for a few weeks, and was induced to go into the Court of Common Pleas, where, it is said, he displayed great powers in a very pathetic case, but, as I have learnt from those who heard him, he appeared a sun shorn of his beams. His house, however, became the resort of much company, calling to visit and converse with him. Gov. Hancock was particularly attentive, and forced him to dine with him in a very large party. He was observed, before this time, to become thoughtful and sad, lying in bed until a very late hour; but immediately after the dinner there was a visible oscillation of his intellect. He was overwhelmed by the recollection of past days, impressed, probably, with greater force by presence of Hancock and others of the convives, by the scene alto

the

gether. There was, however, no frenzy. A hint was given him, by my father, that he had better return to Andover; and he went like lamb, where in a very short period he was struck with lightning."

This statement implies that this was the last time of his visit to Boston. It is a fact, however, that his uncle was moderator of a townmeeting, in March, 1783. Perhaps Mr. Otis mistook the date of conveying him from Andover.

The profession of law was the pursuit of his choice while at college, and he long anticipated the privilege of entering Temple Inns, London; but the confiscation of his grandfather Gray's estate, and the derangement of his father's pecuniary affairs, consequent on the Revolution, crushed that hope. He, however, prepared himself for the profession under the guidance of Judge John Lowell, the jurist and patriot. He pursued his studies with an intensity of application unsurpassed by any young student in the courts of Suffolk, being well apprized of the opinions of his uncle James, who said once, in relation to his father, when he had it in view to study law, "I hold it to be of vast importance that a young man should be able to make some éclat at his opening. 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 ever will obtain one." We will relate a remarkable fact in relation to his devotion to study. Mr. Bussey, afterwards an eminent merchant, who was accustomed to rise early to go to his store, often noticed, in passing Judge Lowell's office, a pair of shoes posted at the window, and soon discovered that a young man was engaged there in close study. Feeling curiosity to know whether he was engaged there all night, Mr. Bussey arose one morning before daybreak, and, as he passed, he saw the shoes were on the window. He then ventured to inquire of the young law-student if he engaged there all night in study. On which Mr. Otis replied that early study in the morning was his decided choice.

"On leaving college, in 1783," relates Mr. Otis, "I entered Mr. Lowell's office as a pupil, and in the following autumn was graciously invited by him, and permitted by my father, to accompany him, Dr. Lloyd, and Mr. Adam Babcock, in a journey to Philadelphia. This afforded me a better opportunity of seeing him in hours of unguarded relaxation from the cares of business than afterwards occurred. The whole journey was a continued scene of pleasant and instructive conversation, and on his part of kind and condescending manners, spark