James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist | Page 9

sharp line of division between
patriotism and loyalty had not yet been drawn --as it was drawn five
years afterward. But it began to be drawn very soon after the marriage
with serious consequences to the domestic peace of the family.
It appears that beside this general cause of divergence, the staid and
unenthusiastic character of Mrs. Otis rather chilled the ardor of the
husband, and he, for his part, by his vehemence and eccentricity, did
not strongly conciliate her favor. There were times of active
disagreement in the family, and in later years the marriage was rather a
fact than a principle.
The result of Mr. Otis's marriage was a family of one son and two
daughters. The son, who was given his father's name, showed his
father's characteristics from childhood, and certainly a measure of his
genius. The lad, however, entered the navy at the outbreak of the
Revolution, became a midshipman, and died in his eighteenth year. The

oldest daughter, Elizabeth, went wholly against her father's grain and
purpose. Just before the beginning of the Revolution, but after the case
had been clearly made up, she was married to a certain Captain Brown,
at that time a British officer in Boston, cordially disliked, if not hated,
by James Otis. Personally, Brown was respectable, but his cause was
odious. He was seriously wounded in the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Afterwards he was promoted and was given a command in England.
Thither his wife went with him, and Mr. Otis discarded them both, if
not with anathema at least with contempt.
It would appear that his natural affection was blotted out. At least his
resentment was life-long, and when he came to make his will he
described the circumstances and disinherited Elizabeth with a shilling.
The fact that Mrs. Otis favored the unfortunate marriage, and perhaps
brought it about--availing herself as it is said, of one of Mr. Otis's spells
of mental aberration to carry out her purposes--aggravated the difficulty
and made her husband's exasperation everlasting.
The younger daughter of the family shared her father's patriotism. She
was married to Benjamin Lincoln, Jr., a young lawyer of Boston,
whose father was General Benjamin Lincoln of revolutionary fame.
The marriage was a happy one, but ultimately clouded with honorable
grief. Two promising sons were born, but each died before reaching his
majority. The father also died when he was twenty-eight years old. The
wife and mother resided in Cambridge, and died there in 1806.
The second period in James Otis's life may be regarded as extending
from 1755 to 1760; that is, from his thirtieth to his thirty-fifth year. It
was in this period that he rose to eminence. Already distinguished as a
lawyer, he now became more distinguished as a civilian and a man of
public affairs.
He caught the rising interest as at the springing of the tide, and rose
with it until it broke in lines of foam along the shores of New England.
He gained the confidence of the patriot party, of which he was the
natural leader. His influence became predominant. He was the peer of
the two Adamses, and touched hands right and left with the foremost
men of all the colonies.
It surprises us to note that at this time James Otis devoted a
considerable section of his time to scholastic and literary pursuits. He
was a student not only of men and affairs but of books. Now it was that

the influence of his Harvard education was seen in both his studies and
his works. We are surprised to find him engaged in the composition of
a text-book which is still extant, and, however obsolete, by no means
devoid of merits. The work was clearly a result left on his mind from
his student days.
He composed and, in the year 1760, published, by the house of B.
Mecom in Boston, a 72 page brochure entitled "The Rudiments of Latin
Prosody with a Dissertation on Letters and the Principles of Harmony
in Poetic and Prosaic Composition, collected from some of the best
Writers."
The work is primarily a text in Latin Prosody in which the author
thought himself to improve on the existing treatises on that subject. The
afterpart of the pamphlet is devoted to a curious examination of the
qualities of the letters of the Greek and Roman alphabets.
In this he attempts to teach the distinction between quantity and accent
in the Greek language, but more particularly to describe the position
and physiological action of the organs of speech in producing the
elementary sounds in the languages referred to. The author declares his
conviction that the growth of science had been seriously impeded by
the inattention of people to the correct utterance of elementary sounds.
He also points out the great abuses