We give these extracts from a letter written by Mr. John Hughes, of Donnington Priory, to Mr. Ainsworth, believing that the reprinted report of a personal friend will be more interesting than a condensed account of it. Mr. Hughes himself was a ripe scholar and a wit. He published poetical pleasantries, under the name of "Mr. Butler of Brasen-nose," in _Blackwood_ and _Ainsworth's Magazine_, and was the father of Mr. Thomas Hughes, the author of _Tom Brown's Schooldays_. "As regards the 'Dead Drummer,' the story was attested in a contemporary pamphlet, called A Narrative of the Life, Confession, and Dying Speech of Jarvis Matchan, which was signed by the Rev. J. Nicholson, who attended him as minister, and by another witness. The murder was not committed on Salisbury Plain, but near Alconbury in Huntingdonshire, and the culprit was hanged in chains at Huntingdon, August 2nd, 1786, for the wilful murder of Benjamin Jones, a drummer boy in the 48th Regiment of Foot, on August 19, 1780. Matchan's escape to sea, and the subsequent vision on Salisbury Plain, which wrung from him his confession, are given with great minuteness, and are as marvellous as any in the poem." "Nell Cook," "Grey Dolphin," "The Ghost," and "The Smuggler's Leap" are Kentish legends, well known, though of course much embellished by the poet. "The Old Woman clothed in Grey" was taken from the story of a ghost that haunted an old rectory near Cambridge, whose custom it was to stroll about the house at midnight, with a bag of money in her hand, which she offered to whomever she met; but no one was brave enough to take it from her. The foundation of most of the legends on subjects of Popish superstition may be found in the Monkish Chronicles which the library at Sion College contains. He tells us that the "Jackdaw of Rheims"--one, by the way, of his most popular legends--was a version of an old Roman Catholic legend "picked up" out of a High Dutch author. The strange details contained in "The Singular Passage in the Life of the late Dr. Harris" were communicated to Mr. Barham by a young lady on her sick-bed, who fully believed all she told him, and even urged the arrest of the young man, to whose arts she believed herself to be a victim. She retained the delusion as long as she lived. The story appeared first in _Blackwood_. In 1839, Sidney Smith placed a Residentiary house, in Amen Corner, at the disposal of Mr. Barham, and the family moved into it in September. This dwelling dated from the erection of the Cathedral itself, and, having been long unoccupied, had become the stronghold of legions of rats, which had first to be destroyed before the family could settle in it. In 1840, Mr. Barham succeeded, in course of rotation, to the Presidency of Sion College, which was held for one year only by the London incumbents in rotation.