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 in the prevailing methods and declares that these abuses have so impeded the work of education "that many have remained children all their days."
Having written and published his work on Latin prosody, Mr. Otis next produced a similar work on the prosody of Greek. This, however, he did not publish, and he is said to have destroyed the manuscript at the time of burning his correspondence near the end of his life.
A conversation of James Otis is narrated by Francis Bowen, in Jared Sparks's "American Biography" in which the orator is represented, in speaking of the bad literary taste prevalent among the boys of the time, as saying, "These lads are very fond of talking about poetry and repeating passages of it. The poets they quote I know nothing of; but do you take care, James, [Otis was addressing James Perkins, Esq., of Boston] that you don't give in to this folly. If you want to read poetry, read Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden and Pope and throw all the rest into the fire; these are all that are worth reading." In this brief comment the severity of Otis's literary taste is indicated and also something of the rather abrupt and dogmatic character of his mind. His criticism, though true, can hardly be said to be judicious.
In order to understand the part which James Otis played in the great work of revolution and independence it is now necessary to note with care the conditions into which he was cast and with which he was environed at that period of his life when the man-fire flames highest and the audacity of the soul bounds furthest into the arena of danger.
Every man is the joint product of himself and his environment. His life is the resultant of the two forces by which he is held and balanced. At the time when James Otis reached his thirty-fifth year a condition had supervened in the American colonies which reacted upon his passionate and Patriotic nature so powerfully as to bring into full play all of his faculties and to direct the whole force of his nature against the tyrannical method of the mother country.
Let us look for a moment at the course of events which had preceded and which succeeded the crisis in James Otis's life, and made him the born leader of his countrymen in their first conflict for independence.
Great Britain had aforetime permitted the American colonists to plant themselves where, when, and as they would. Almost every colonial settlement had been an adventure. The emigrants from the other side of the Atlantic had been squeezed out by the hard discipline of church and state. In America they settled as they might.
"And England didn't look to know or care."