REPLY TO AN AGED SUITOR.

WHY thus press me to compliance ?
Why oblige me to refuse ?
Yet tho' I shrink from your alliance,
Perhaps a younger I may choose.

For 'tis a state I'll ne'er disparage-
Nor will I war against it wage-
I do not, sir, object to marriage,
I but object to marry age.

CORRESPONDENCE.

We owe an apology to our correspondent "Moses," for an accidental omission in his communication last month. In page 92, after

the line

"A" Comet's Palace" too canst build,' should have been inserted,

With wondrous wonders quaintly fill'd.

Erratum. In part of our impression of the present number in the title, page 145, for July read August.

1

THE

POLYANTHOS,

FOR

SEPTEMBER, 1812.

SOME PARTICULARS OF THE LATE

JAMES OTIS, ESQ.

Blest with a native strength and fire of thought,
With Greek and Roman learning richly fraught,
Up to the fountain head he push'd his view,
And from first principles his maxims drew.
Spite of the times, this truth he blaz'd abroad,
The people's safety is the law of Gol.

ANON.

THE celebrated James Otis, of Boston, was the son of the Hon. James Otis of Barnstable, in the state of Massachusetts; the father was possessed of a vigour of intellect, and an avidity for study, which, without publick education, qualified him for professional pursuit and publick employment, in both of which he was eminent and respectable. The son passed through all the grades of private and academick education, which the country could offer. The generosity of his soul, the frankness of his mind, and the vivacity of his genius led him to be courted in VOL. 2.

T

the early stages of his collegiate education, by the gay, dissipated, and expensive scholars of riper years. But he soon found, that this was not the road to happiness, fame, or honour; he broke from the entanglement of youthful levity and dissipation, shut himself up in his study, and with indefatigable industry, explored the labyrinths of science, received academick honours, and then retired to the parental roof, where he devoted one year to further pursuits in general information. He then entered himself a student at law with the famous Mr. Gridley, the first lawyer and civilian of his time, and at twenty-one years of age began the practice of that learned profession at Plymouth. He there remained two years, study still his principal pursuit, when he removed to Boston. There his reputation soon became so extensive, that he was constantly employed, and practised with that integrity, openness, and honour, that allured judges, ju ries, and parties, to acknowledge, that the side he espoused must be successful. In consequence of this celebrity, application was made for his assistance in the most important causes in the neighbouring colonies, and even in Nova Scotia, where he conducted successfully some law cases of magnitude and importance, and his reputation at the bar expanded his vast talents.