LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE REV. RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM (_Thomas Ingoldsby_), _Frontispiece_. THE SPECTRE OF TAPPINGTON, 4 THE GHOST, 66 HAMILTON TIGHE, 102 GRANDFATHER'S STORY; OR, THE WITCHES' FROLIC, 113 THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS, 143 A LAY OF ST. NICHOLAS, 175 THE BLACK MOUSQUETAIRE, 241 THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, 260 THE AUTO-DA-FÉ, 277 THE DEAD DRUMMER, 343 THE LAY OF ST. CUTHBERT, 362 A LEGEND OF DOVER, 381 LEGEND OF ST. MEDARD, 399 THE LORD OF THOULOUSE, 413 THE BUCCANEER'S CURSE, 428 THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY, 467 THE HOUSE-WARMING, 479 JERRY JARVIS'S WIG, 497 MEMOIR. Richard Harris Barham, the "Thomas Ingoldsby" of literature, was born at Canterbury, December 6th, 1788. His family had long been residents in the archiepiscopal city, and had estates in Kent. He (Barham) used to trace his descent from a knight who came over to England with William the Conqueror, and whose son, Reginald Fitzurse, was one of the assassins of Thomas à Becket. After the deed Fitzurse fled to Ireland, and there changed his name to MacMahon, which has the same meaning. His brother Robert, who succeeded to the English estates, changed his patronymic to de Berham, converted in process of time into Barham. Richard Barham was only between five and six years old when his father died, leaving him heir to a small estate in Kent. A portion of it consisted of a manor called Tappington Wood, often alluded to in the _Ingoldsby Legends_. Richard was sent to St. Paul's School, and it was on his road thither, in 1802, that he met with an accident that endangered his life. The horses of the Dover mail, in which he was travelling, took fright and galloped off furiously: the boy put his right hand out of the window to open the door, when at that moment the coach upset; his hand was caught under it, and it was dragged along on a rough road and seriously mutilated. The surgeons, believing he would die, did not amputate the limb; and through the tender care of the headmaster's wife (he had been sent on to school) he recovered.