EARL PERCY AND YANKEE DOODLE.

Earl Percy was the son of the Duke of Northumberland. When he was marching out of Boston, his band struck up the tune of Yankee Doodle, in derision.

He saw a boy in Roxbury making himself very merry as he passed. Percy inquired why he was so merry.

"To think," said the lad, "how you will dance by and by to Chevy Chase."

Percy was much influenced by presentiments, and the words of the boy made him moody. Percy was a lineal descendant of the Earl Percy who was slain in the battle of Chevy Chase, and he felt all day as if some great calamity might befall him.

STORY OF JAMES OTIS. FOR A SCHOOL OR CLUB PROGRAMME.

Each numbered paragraph is to be given to a pupil or member to read, or to recite in a clear, distinct tone.

If the school or club is small, each person may take three or four paragraphs, but should not be required to recite them in succession.

James Otis was born in West Barnstable, near the center of

Massachusetts, February 5, 1725. 2. His ancestors were of English descent. The founder of the family in America, John Otis, came from Hingham, in Norfolk, England, and settled in Hingham, Massachusetts, in the year 1635.
1. His grandson, John Otis, was born in 1635. He removed from
  Hingham to Barnstable, where he became a prominent man and held several important positions. For eighteen years he was Colonel of Militia, for twenty years Representative, for twenty-one years member of the

Council, for thirteen years Chief Justice of common pleas, and Judge of Probate.

His two sons, John and James, became distinguished in public life.

James, the father of the subject of this sketch, was an eminent lawyer. He, like his father, became Colonel of Militia, Chief Justice of common pleas, and Judge of Probate.
James Otis, Jr. thus by inheritance, derived his legal bent and love

for political life.
His mother's name was Mary Allyne, or Alleyne, of Wethersfield,

Conn., daughter of Joseph Allyne, of Plymouth. She was connected with the founders of Plymouth colony, who arrived in the Mayflower in 1620.
James was the oldest of thirteen children, several of whom died in

infancy. Others lived to attain distinction.
He was fitted for College by the Rev. Jonathan Russell of

Barnstable, and was so industrious in his studies that he was ready in his fifteenth year to enter as a freshman at Harvard in June, 1739.
There is grave reason for believing that his excessive devotion to

study at this early period, had much to do with his nervous and excitable condition in succeeding years.
"Make haste slowly" is the translation of a Latin motto, which

parents and teachers ought to observe in the education of children.
Far better is it for the student to take time in making a thorough

preparation for the great work of life, than to rush through his preparatory course at the great risk of health and strength. Let him aim ever be to present "a sound mind in a sound body."
James Otis was graduated from college in 1743, after completing a

four years successful course.
After graduation he wisely gave nearly two years to the pursuits of

general literature and science before entering upon the law.
In this, he set a good example to the young men of the present day,

who are so strongly tempted to enter at once upon professional life, without laying a broad and deep foundation for future usefulness.
James Otis was very fond of the best poets, and "in the zealous

emulation of their beauties," says Dr. Magoon, "he energized his spirit and power of expression.
"He did not merely read over the finest passages--he pondered

them--he fused them into his own soul, and reproduced their charms with an energy all his own."
In 1745 he entered the law office of Jeremiah Gridley, in Boston,

who was then one of the most distinguished lawyers in the country.
He began the practice of law in Plymouth, in 1748, but soon found

that he was "cabined, cribbed and confined" in the opportunity to rise in such a small place.
In 1750 he removed to Boston, and there finding full scope for his

powers, soon rose to the foremost rank in his profession.
He justly won the high place so generally accorded him, by his

learning, his integrity, and his marvelous eloquence.
In acting successfully as counsel for the three men who were accused

of piracy in Halifax, he received a well earned fee, which was the largest that had ever been paid to a Massachusetts lawyer.
Like James A. Garfield, he kept up a lively interest in classical

studies during his entire professional career.
James Otis married Miss Ruth Cunningham, daughter of a Boston

merchant, early in 1755.
The marriage was not in all respects a happy one, partly on account

of political differences. While he became an ardent patriot, she remained a staunch loyalist until her death on Nov. 15, 1789.
Another reason for the want of complete domestic felicity was the

peculiar character of his genius, which, so often glowing, excitable and irregular, must have frequently demanded a home forbearance almost miraculous.
The elder daughter, Elizabeth, married a Captain Brown of the

British army, and ended her days in England. 27. The younger daughter, Mary, married Benjamin, the eldest son of the distinguished General

Lincoln.

In 1761, when he was thirty-six years of age his great political

career began, by his determined opposition to the "Writs of Assistance."
He said with an eloquence that thrilled every heart, "A man's house

is his castle; and while he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This Writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally annihilate this privilege."
"I am determined to sacrifice estate, ease, health, applause and

even life, to the sacred calls of my country in opposition to a kind of power, the exercise of which cost one king his head and another his throne."
In 1762 he published a pamphlet entitled, "The Rights of the

Colonies Vindicated," which attracted great attention in England for its finished diction and masterly arguments.
In this production he firmly took the unassailable position, that in

all questions relating to the expenditure of public money, the rights of a Colonial Legislature were as sacred as the rights of the House of Commons.
Some of the Parliamentary leaders in England spoke of the work with

contempt. Lord Mansfield, the great English legal luminary, who had carefully read it, rebuked them for their attitude towards it.
But they rejoined, as quoted by Bancroft, "The man is mad!" "What

then?" answered Mansfield. "One mad man often makes many. Massaniello was mad--nobody doubted it--yet for all that he overturned the government of Naples."
In June, 1765, Mr. Otis proposed the calling of a congress of

delegates from all the colonies to consider the Stamp Act.
In that famous Congress which met in October, 1765, in New York, he

was one of the delegates, and was appointed on the committee to prepare an address to the Commons of England.
In 1767 he was elected Speaker of the Massachusetts Assembly.

Governor Bernard took a decidedly negative position against the fiery

orator, whom he feared as much as he did the intrepid Sam Adams.

But Bernard could not put a padlock upon the lips of Otis. When the

king, who was greatly offended at the Circular Letter to the colonies, which requested them to unite in measures for redress demanded of Bernard to dismiss the Assembly unless it should rescind its action, Otis made a flaming speech.
His adversaries said, "It was the most violent, abusive and

treasonable declaration that perhaps was ever uttered."
In the debate which ensued upon this royal order, Otis said: "We are

asked to rescind, are we? Let Great Britain rescind her measures, or the colonies are lost to her forever."
Otis carried the House triumphantly with him, and it refused to

rescind by a vote of ninety-two to seventeen.
In the summer of 1769 he attacked some of the revenue officers in an

article in "The Boston Gazette." A few evenings afterwards, while sitting in the British coffee-house in Boston, he was savagely assaulted by a man named Robinson, who struck him on the head with a heavy cane or sword.
The severe wound which was produced so greatly aggravated the mental

disease which had before been somewhat apparent, that his reason rapidly forsook him.
Otis obtained a judgment of L2,000 against Robinson for the attack,

but when the penitent officer made a written apology for his irreparable offense, the sufferer refused to take a penny.
In 1771 he was elected to the legislature, and sometimes afterward

appeared in court and in the town meeting, but found himself unable to take part in public business.
In June, 1775, while living in a state of harmless insanity with his

sister, Mercy Warren, at Watertown, Mass., he heard, according to Appleton's "Cyclopedia of American Biography," the rumor of battle. On the 17th he slipped away unobserved, "borrowed a musket from some farmhouse by the roadside, and joined the minute men who were marching

to the aid of the troops on Bunker Hill."

"He took an active part in that battle, and after it was over made

his way home again after midnight."
The last years of his life were spent at the residence of Mr. Osgood

in Andover. For a brief season it seemed as though his reason was restored. He even undertook a case in the Court of Common Pleas in Boston, but found himself unequal to the exertion demanded of him.
He had been persuaded to dine with Governor Hancock and some other

friends. "But the presence of his former friends and the revived memories of previous events, gave a great shock to his broken mind." He was persuaded to go back at once to the residence of Mr. Osgood.
After his mind had become unsettled he said to Mrs. Warren, "My dear

sister, I hope, when God Almighty in his righteous providence shall take me out of time into eternity, that it will be by a flash of lightning," and this wish he often repeated.
Six weeks exactly after his return, on May 23, 1783, while standing

in the side doorway during a thunder-shower, with his cane in his hand, and telling the assembled family a story, he was struck by lightning and instantly killed. Not one of the seven or eight persons in the room was injured. "No mark of any kind could be found on Otis, nor was there the slightest change or convulsion on his features."
His remains were brought to Boston and interred in the Granary

Burying Ground with every mark of respect, a great number of the citizens attending his funeral.
James Otis sowed the seeds of liberty in this new world without

living to see the harvest, and probably without ever dreaming what magnificent crops would be produced.
When the usurpations of un-English parliamentarians and their allies

at home, became as burdensome, as they were unjust he defended his countrymen, in whose veins flowed the best of English blood, with an eloquence whose ultimate influence transcended his own sublime aspirations.
He taught, in the ominous words, which King James's first House of

Commons addressed to the House of Lords, immediately after the monarch had been lecturing them on his own prerogative, that "There may be a People without a king;, but there can be no king without a people."
"Fortunately for civil liberty in England and America, in all

countries and in all times," as Edward Everett Hale says, "none of the Stuarts ever learned in time what this ominous sentence means--ot James I, the most foolish of them, nor Charles I, the most false; nor Charles II, the most worthless; nor James II, the most obstinate."
It could be said of Otis as Coleridge said of O'Connell, "See how

triumphant in debate and action he is. And why? Because he asserts a broad principle, acts up to it, rests his body upon it, and has faith in it."