Page:Henry Derozio, the Eurasian, poet, teacher, and journalist. With appendices (IA henryderozioeura00edwarich).pdf/20

 the rapid course of time is fast accomplishing, some attempt, however imperfect, should be made to place on record something of their life and work, before the last of those who knew them as they walked the earth and played their part in life, have died out and made it impossible to recover facts and incidents that otherwise must perish.

Henry Louis Vivian Derozio was born on the 10th April 1809, in the house which stands to this day on the 24-Pergunnah side of Circular Road, at the head of Jaun Bazaar Street. The building is surrounded by a large compound in which there is a tank, and is a good specimen of the old-fashioned substantial houses of fifty years ago. Derozio's father who was descended from a respectable Portuguese family, named DeRozario, occupied a highly respectable position in the mercantile house of Messrs. J. Scott and Co., in Calcutta; and must have been a man of some means, for the house he dwelt in was his own property, and his children received the best education that could then be procured in Calcutta. He was twice married, and the subject of this biographical sketch was born to his first wife. Besides Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, there were other three children, an elder brother Frank, who seems to have led a worthless life, and ultimately went to the bad, a younger brother Claudius, of whom little or nothing seems to be known beyond the fact that he went to