part in those scenes with a degree of aptness and energy
proportional to the magnitude of the occasion and throughout
displayed high qualities of character.

Otis's part was played not so much in the revolution itself, as
in the agitations and controversies by which it was heralded and
its way prepared. "Admirably fitted by his popular talents, legal
acquirements, and ardent temperament, to take an active share in
the discussion respecting the comparative rights of the Colonies
and the British Parliament, and in preparing the minds of his
countrymen for the great step of a final separation from England,
and having exhausted, as it were, his mental powers in this
preparatory effort, his mind was darkened when the contest really
came, and he remained an impotent spectator of the struggle, by
which the liberties of his native land were at last permanently
established."

The Life of James Otis as narrated by William Tudor is one of the
most pleasant and instructive in the whole range of American
biographies, and leaves few particulars in the personal life of
Otis to be gathered by the subsequent investigator. The sketch
by Francis Bowen in Jared Sparks' Library of American Biography
furnishes additional and valuable illustrations of the character
and services of Otis, which were secured from the third volume of
Thomas Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, (first published
after Tudor's Life of Otis appeared), from the copies of papers
in the office of the English Board of Trade relating to the
colonial history of Massachusetts, and from the private
correspondence of Governors Bernard and Hutchinson with the
English Ministry, during the time of Otis's public career. These