"This much of _Matilda_ I recollect--(for that is not so easily forgotten)--that she was attempted for the existing person of a lady who is now no more, so that I am particularly flattered with your distinguishing it from the others, which are in general mere shadows."[16] I can have no doubt that the lady he here alludes to was the object of his own unfortunate first love; and as little, that in the romantic generosity, both of the youthful poet who fails to win her higher favor, and of his chivalrous competitor, we have before us something more than "a mere shadow." In spite of these graceful characters, the inimitable scenery on which they are presented, and the splendid vivacity and thrilling interest of several chapters in the story--such as the opening interview of Bertram and Wycliffe--the flight up the cliff on the Greta--the first entrance of the cave at Brignall--the firing of Rokeby Castle--and the catastrophe in Eglistone Abbey;--in spite certainly of exquisitely happy lines profusely scattered throughout the whole composition, and of some detached images--that of the setting of the tropical sun,[17] for example--which were never surpassed by any poet; in spite of all these merits, the immediate success of Rokeby was greatly inferior to that of The Lady of the Lake; nor has it ever since been so much a favorite with the public at large as any other of his poetical romances. He ascribes this failure, in his Introduction of 1830, partly to the radically unpoetical character of the Roundheads; but surely their character has its poetical side also, had his prejudices allowed him to enter upon its study with impartial sympathy; and I doubt not, Mr. Morritt suggested the difficulty on this score, when the outline of the story was as yet undetermined, from consideration rather of the poet's peculiar feelings, and powers as hitherto exhibited, than of the subject absolutely. Partly he blames the satiety of the public ear, which had had so much of his rhythm, not only from himself, but from dozens of mocking-birds, male and female, all more or less applauded in their day, and now all equally forgotten.[18] This circumstance, too, had probably no slender effect; the more that, in defiance of all the hints of his friends, he now, in his narrative, repeated (with more negligence) the uniform octosyllabic couplets of The Lady of the Lake, instead of recurring to the more varied cadence of the Lay or Marmion. It is fair to add that, among the London circles at least, some sarcastic flings in Mr. Moore's Twopenny Post Bag must have had an unfavorable influence on this occasion.[19] But the cause of failure which the poet himself places last was unquestionably the main one. The deeper and darker passion of Childe Harold, the audacity of its morbid voluptuousness, and the melancholy majesty of the numbers in which it defied the world, had taken the general imagination by storm; and Rokeby, with many