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124 During the life of her husband Mrs. Hancock was of necessity much in the gay world, in which she occupied a position of unusual distinction. After Hancock's death, she married Captain Scott, with whom she passed a less brilliant yet no less happy life. Her later years were spent in seclusion. She was still, however, surrounded by friends who felt themselves instructed and charmed by her superior mind. She went but little into society, yet, whenever she appeared she was received with great attention. La Fayette, on his visit to this country, called upon her and many spoke of the interesting interview witnessed between "the once youthful chevalier and the splendid belle." She died in her seventy-eighth year, a woman of whose brilliant life and beautiful poise her countrymen may well be proud.

The name of Mercy Warren belongs to American History. In the influence she exercised she was, perhaps, the most remarkable woman who lived during the Revolutionary period. Seldom has one woman in any age acquired such an ascendency over the strongest by mere force of a powerful intellect. She is said to have supplied political parties with their arguments; and she was the first of her sex in America who taught the reading world in matters of state policy and history. She was the third child of Colonel James Otis, of Barnstable, in the old colony of Plymouth, and was born there, September 25, 1728. The youth of Miss Otis was passed in the retirement of her home, and her love for reading was early manifest. At that period the opportunities for woman's education were extremely limited and Miss Otis gained nothing from schools. Her only assistant in intellectual culture of her early years was Rev. Jonathan Russell, the minister of the parish from whose library she was supplied with books and by whose counsels her tastes were in a measure formed. It was from reading at his advice Raleigh's "History of the World" that her attention was particularly directed to history, the branch of literature to which she afterwards devoted herself. In later years, her brother James, who was himself an excellent scholar, became her adviser and companion in literary pursuits.