DEAR SIR,--My grandfather, who died in the 'fifties, used to tell a story
of a hermit who lived in Savernake Forest, an extraordinarily absent-minded
man with a beard of such colossal dimensions that several of the feathered
denizens of the forest took up their abode in its recesses. This curious
phenomenon was, I believe, commemorated in verse by an early-Victorian
poet, but I have not been able after considerable research to trace the
reference. I have the honour to remain,