“Holding Corioli in the name of Rome,
     Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash,
     To let him slip at will;”

and for the noun, Hen.  V. iii. 1. 31: 

    “I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
     Straining upon the start.”

747.  Who ever recked, etc.  Scott says:  “St. John actually used this illustration when engaged in confuting the plea of law proposed for the unfortunate Earl of Strafford:  ’It was true, we gave laws to hares and deer, because they are beasts of chase; but it was never accounted either cruelty or foul play to knock foxes or wolves on the head as they can be found, because they are beasts of prey.  In a word, the law and humanity were alike:  the one being more fallacious, and the other more barbarous, than in any age had been vented in such an authority’ (Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion).”

762.  The hardened flesh of mountain deer.  “The Scottish Highlanders, in former times, had a concise mode of cooking their venison, or rather of dispensing with cooking it, which appears greatly to have surprised the French, whom chance made acquainted with it.  The Vidame of Chartres, when a hostage in England, during the reign of Edward vi., was permitted to travel into Scotland, and penetrated as far as to the remote Highlands (au fin fond des Sauvages).  After a great hunting-party, at which a most wonderful quantity of game was destroyed, he saw these Scottish savages devour a part of their venison raw, without any farther preparation than compressing it between two batons of wood, so as to force out the blood, and render it extremely hard.  This they reckoned a great delicacy; and when the Vidame partook of it, his compliance with their taste rendered him extremely popular.  This curious trait of manners was communicated by Mons. de Montmorency, a great friend of the Vidame, to Brantome, by whom it is recorded in Vies des Hommes Illustres, lxxxix. 14. ...  After all, it may be doubted whether la chaire nostree, for so the French called the venison thus summarily prepared, was anything more than a mere rude kind of deer ham” (Scott).

772.  A mighty augury.  That of the Taghairm.

777.  Not for clan.  The 1st ed. has “nor for clan.”

785.  Stock and stone.  Cf. i. 130 above.

787.  Coilantogle’s ford.  On the Teith just below its exit from Loch Vennachar.

791.  The bittern’s cry.  See on i. 642 above.

797.  And slept, etc.  The Ms. has “streak” and “lake” for beam and stream.

Canto Fifth.

1.  Fair as the earliest beam, etc.  “This introductory stanza is well worked in with the story.  The morning beam ’lights the fearful path on mountain side’ which the two heroes of the poem are to traverse, and the comparison which it suggest enlists our sympathy for Roderick, who is to be the victim of defeat” (Taylor).