Note 16 — Chapter XXV
Reading edition
"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."