ABSTRACT
‘Who is there among us,’ says Cicero, ‘that has been instructed with any care, that is not highly delighted with the sight, or even the bare remembrance of his preceptor and the place where he was taught?’55 Every sentiment which memory has engraved upon my heart confirms this opinion; and, to the tutor of my infancy does that heart daily offer up a prayer of gratitude and affection. Deprived of one dear parent, and estranged from the other, deserted by Lady Aubrey, snarled at by the domestics at Glenowen, I was a stranger to happiness till Mr. Hanbury afforded me his protection. In his kindness I found the affections of a parent, the zeal of a friend, and the assiduity of a preceptor. I felt a combination of gratitude and respect interwoven with every fibre of my heart; and though the gaudy scenes of life have passed before my eyes, like the warm tints of declining day, and, like them, faded to oblivion; the earliest dawn of reason, though clouded by misfortune, remains fresh in my memory, as though it were still present. I remember its dark and lowering aspect; and that the only ray of consolation which gleamed through the sombre perspective originated in the warm and fostering smiles of my benevolent tutor. To his enlightened maxims I owe the few flowers which nature implanted, but which he called forth to decorate my bosom. – Alas, Rosanna! they only bloomed, like all my vain delusive hopes, to perish.
