"The boy expired--the father held the clay,
And look'd upon it long, and when at last
Death left no doubt, and the dead burden lay
Stiff on his heart, and pulse and hope were past,
He watch'd it wistfully, until away
'Twas borne by the rude wave wherein 'twas cast:
Then he himself sunk down all dumb and shivering,
And gave no sign of life, save his limbs quivering."
DON JUAN, CANTO II.
In the collection of "Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea," to which Lord
Byron so skilfully had recourse for the technical knowledge and facts
out of which he has composed his own powerful description, the reader
will find the account of the loss of the Juno here referred to.]
[Footnote 25: This elegy is in his first (unpublished) volume.]
[Footnote 26: See page 25.]
[Footnote 27: For the display of his declamatory powers, on the
speech-days, he selected always the most vehement passages,--such as
the speech of Zanga over the body of Alonzo, and Lear's address to the
storm. On one of these public occasions, when it was arranged that he
should take the part of Drances, and young Peel that of Turnus, Lord
Byron suddenly changed his mind, and preferred the speech of
Latinus,--fearing, it was supposed, some ridicule from the
inappropriate taunt of Turnus, "Ventosa in lingua, _pedibusque
fugacibus istis_."]
[Footnote 28: His letters to Mr. Sinclair, in return, are unluckily
lost,--one of them, as this gentleman tells me, having been highly
characteristic of the jealous sensitiveness of his noble schoolfellow,
being written under the impression of some ideal slight, and
beginning, angrily, "Sir.
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