wild on a common
The modern locution might be "like a horse in a pasture." A "common" was
the common ground set aside or simply taken over by a community for
pasturage of the small flocks and other animals belonging to its
individual members. In the two generations previous to the writing of
Frankenstein commons had all but disappeared in the British Isles
as a result of their "enclosure" by landlords. The effect was enormously
disruptive of rural stability, as Oliver Goldsmith's well-known poem,
The Deserted Village (1770), recounts.
