Among the books that lay accessible to the boys in Dr. Glennie’s study was a pamphlet written by the brother of one of his most intimate friends, entitled, “Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Juno on the coast of Arracan, in the year 1795.”  The writer had been the second officer of the ship, and the account which he had sent home to his friends of the sufferings of himself and his fellow-passengers had appeared to them so touching and strange, that they determined to publish it.  The pamphlet attracted but little, it seems, of public attention, but among the young students of Dulwich Grove it was a favourite study; and the impression which it left on the retentive mind of Byron may have had some share, perhaps, in suggesting that curious research through all the various Accounts of Shipwrecks upon record, by which he prepared himself to depict with such power a scene of the same description in Don Juan.  The following affecting incident, mentioned by the author of this pamphlet, has been adopted, it will be seen, with but little change either of phrase or circumstance, by the poet:—­

“Of those who were not immediately near me I knew little, unless by their cries.  Some struggled hard, and died in great agony; but it was not always those whose strength was most impaired that died the easiest, though, in some cases, it might have been so.  I particularly remember the following instances.  Mr. Wade’s servant, a stout and healthy boy, died early and almost without a groan; while another of the same age, but of a less promising appearance, held out much longer.  The fate of these unfortunate boys differed also in another respect highly deserving of notice.  Their fathers were both in the fore-top when the lads were taken ill.  The father of Mr. Wade’s boy hearing of his son’s illness, answered with indifference, ’that he could do nothing for him,’ and left him to his fate.  The other, when the accounts reached him, hurried down, and watching for a favourable moment, crawled on all fours along the weather gunwale to his son, who was in the mizen rigging.  By that time, only three or four planks of the quarter deck remained, just over the weather-quarter gallery; and to this spot the unhappy man led his son, making him fast to the rail to prevent his being washed away.  Whenever the boy was seized with a fit of retching, the father lifted him up and wiped the foam from his lips; and, if a shower came, he made him open his mouth to receive the drops, or gently squeezed them into it from a rag.  In this affecting situation both remained four or five days, till the boy expired.  The unfortunate parent, as if unwilling to believe the fact, then raised the body, gazed wistfully at it, and, when he could no longer entertain any doubt, watched it in silence till it was carried off by the sea; then, wrapping himself in a piece of canvass, sunk down and rose no more; though he must have lived two days longer, as we judged from the quivering of his limbs, when a wave broke over him."[24]