Mr. Steevens's explanation of _coted_, and of the whole line, is inadmissible. _Foulness_ or _cloudiness_ is no criterion of the _beauty_ of amber. Mr. Malone has partly explained _coted_, by _marked_, but has apparently missed the sense of it here when he adds _written down_. Mr. Mason has given the true construction of the line, but he mistakes the meaning of _coted_, which, after all, merely signifies to _mark_ or _note_. The word is from the French _coter_, which, in like manner as Mr. Malone has well observed of the English term, is the old orthography of _quoter_. The grammatical construction is, "her amber hairs have marked or shown that [real] amber is foul in comparison of themselves." SCENE. 3. Page 291. LONG. Some tricks, some _quillets_, how to cheat the Devil. The objection to Warburton's derivation of _quillet_ from the _French_ is, that there is no such term in the language: nor is it exclusively applicable to law-chicane, though generally so used by Shakspeare. It strictly means a _subtilty_, and seems to have originated among the schoolmen of the middle ages, by whom it was called a _quidlibet_. They had likewise their _quodlibets_ and their _quiddities_. From the schoolmen these terms were properly enough transferred to the lawyers. Hamlet says, "Why may not that be the scull of a lawyer? where be his _quiddits_ now, his _quillets_, his cases, his tenures and his tricks?" The conjectures of Peck, and after him of Dr. Grey in a note to Hudibras, seem to merit but little attention. SCENE 3. Page 294. BIRON. Still climbing trees in the _Hesperides_. An error is here laid to Shakspeare's charge, of which he is not perhaps guilty. The expression _trees in the Hesperides_ must be regarded as elliptical, and signifies _trees in the gardens of the Hesperides_. Shakspeare is seldom wrong in his mythology, and, if he had doubted on the present occasion, the dictionaries of Eliot or Cooper would have supplied him with the necessary information. The first quotation in the note from Greene, is equally elliptical; for this writer was too good a scholar to have committed the mistake ascribed to Shakspeare: so that the passage, instead of convicting the latter, does in reality support him. As to the other quotation from _Orpheus and Eurydice_, the learned critic himself lays but little stress on it; or indeed might, on reconsideration, be disposed to think the expression correct. It would not be difficult to trace instances in modern authors of the use of _Hesperides_ for _gardens of the Hesperides_. See Lempriere's excellent classical dictionary, edit. 1792, 8vo. ACT V. SCENE 1. Page 302. HOL. His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his _tongue filed_.--