If this should meet the eyes of my friend NAUTICUS, wherever in the broad seas he may happen to be, he will be glad to hear that this extensive earthwork of antiquity is now undergoing the investigation of an Archæological Society, of which he is an esteemed member. I may further remark that the family name of Grimesdike is doubtless from some ancient place so named, and not these several places from the family. The armorial bearings of the family would at once suggest this conclusion. I have not found the name given to any ancient work in Wales, which of course would not be the case, if it be of Saxon origin. W. H. K. POET REFERRED TO BY BACON. (Vol. iv., p. 257.) The poet referred to by Bacon is not the author of the _Mirror for Magistrates_, but ARIOSTO, whose _Orlando Furioso_ was then popular in the recent translation of Sir John Harrington. The allegory will be found at the close of the thirty-fourth and commencement of the thirty-fifth books: "Further, the Duke did in that place behold, That when the threads were spent that had been spun, Their names in brass, in silver, or in gold, Were wrote, and so into great heaps were done; From which a man that seemed wondrous old, With whole loads of these names away did run, And turn'd again us fast, the way he went, Nor e'er weary was, nor ever spent. "A heap of names within his cloak he bore, And in the river did them all unlade; Or, to say truth, away he cast them all Into the stream which Lethe we do call. "He hurl'd therein full many a precious name, Where millions soon into the bottom sank, Hardly in every thousand one was found, That was not in the gulf quite lost and drown'd. "Yet all about great store of birds there flew As vulture, carrion crows, and chatt'ring pyes, And many more of sundry kind and hue, Making lewd harmony with their loud cries; These when the careless wretch the treasure threw Into that stream, did all they could devise, What with their talons some, and some with beak, To save some names, but find themselves too weak. "Only two swans sustain'd so great a poise, In spite of him that sought them all to drown, These two do still take up the names they list, And bare them safe away, and never misst. "They caught them ere they to the stream arriv'd, Then went they, with the names they had recover'd, Up to a hill, that stood the water nigh, On which a stately church was builded high. "This place is sacred to immortal Fame, And evermore a nymph stood at the gate And took the names ... ... Then all about the church she hang'd the same Before the sacred image, in such rate As they might then well be assur'd for ever, Spite of that wretch, in safety to persever.