l. 42. 'Bratchet, slowhound.'—Scott. The older spelling is brachet (from brach or brache), as:—
Sir Gaw. and the Green Knyght, 1603.
In contrast with the gazehound the brachet hunts by scent.
l. 44. Cp. Julius Caesar, iii. I. 273, 'Let slip the dogs of war.'
l. 48. Harquebuss, arquebus, or hagbut, a heavy musket. Cp. below, V. 54.
l. 49. Cp. Dryden's 'Alexander's Feast,' 'The vocal hills reply.'
l. 54. Yarrow stream is the ideal scene of Border romance. See the Border Minstrelsy, and cp. the works of Hamilton of Bangour, John Leyden, Wordsworth's Yarrow poems, the poems of the Ettrick Shepherd, Prof. Veitch, and Principal Shairp. John Logan's 'Braes of Yarrow' also deserves special mention, and many singers of Scottish song know Scott Riddell's 'Dowie Dens o' Yarrow.'
l. 61. Holt, an Anglo-Saxon word for wood or grove, has been a favourite with poet's since Chaucer's employment of it (Prol. 6):—
Enspired hath in every holte and heethe
The tendre croppes.'
See Dr. Morris's Glossary to Chaucer's Prologue, &c. (Clarendon Press).
'l. 68. Cp. Wordsworth's two Matthew poems, 'The Two April Mornings' and 'The Fountain'; also Matthew Arnold's 'Thyrsis'—
But once I knew each field, each flower, each stick;
And with the country-folk acquaintance made
By barn in threshing-time, by new-built rick,
Here, too, our shepherd-pipes we first assay'd.'
l. 82. Janet in the ballad of 'The Young Tamlane' in the Border Minstrelsy. The dissertation Scott prefixed to this ballad is most interesting and valuable.
l. 84. See above, note on Rev. J. Marriott.
l. 85. Scott was sheriff-substitute of Selkirkshire. As the law requires residence within the limits of the sheriffdom, Scott dwelt at Ashestiel at least four months of every year. Prof. Veitch, in his descriptive poem 'The Tweed,' writes warmly on Ashestiel, as Scott's residence in his happiest time:—
And lists the ripple of Glenkinnon's rill—
