It is agreeable to find that Ben Jonson stands wholly acquitted of the charge of being the writer of the offensive and discreditable verses in question. ---------- The following letter from Edmund Windham to Dr. Plot, author of the history of Staffordshire, relative to the ghost story related by Clarendon, is taken from the “Biographia Britannica”:-- "SIR--According to your desire and my promise, I have written downe what I remember (divers things being slipt out of my memory) of the relation made me by Mr. Nicholas Towse, concerning the apparition which visited him about 1627. "I and my wife, upon occasion being in London, lay at my brother’s, Pym’s, house, without Bishopsgate, which was next house unto Mr. Nicholas Towse’s, who was his kinsman and familiar acquaintance--in consideration of whose society and friendship he took a house in that place; the said Towse being a very fine musician and very good company--for aught I ever saw or heard, a virtuous, religious, and well-disposed gentleman. About that time, the said Mr Towse told me that, one night being in bed and perfectly waking, and a candle burning by him (as he usually had), there came into his chamber, and stood by his bed-side, an old gentleman, in such a habit as was in use in Queen Elizabeth’s time; at whose first appearance Mr. Towse was very much troubled; but after a little while, recollecting himself, he demanded of him in the name of God, _What he was?--whether he were a man?_ And the Apparition replied, _Noe_. Then he asked him _if he were a devil_? And the Apparition answered, _Noe_. Then said Mr. Towse, _In the name of God, what art thou then_? And, as I remember, Mr. Towse told me that the Apparition answered him that _he was the ghost of Sir George Villiers, father to the then Duke of Buckingham, whom he might very well remember, since he went to schole at such a place in Leicestershire_--naming the place, which I have forgotten. And Mr. Towse told me that the Apparition had perfectly the resemblance of the said Sir George Villiers in all respects, and in the same habit that he had often seen him wear in his lifetime. The said Apparition also told him that he could not but remember the much kindness that he, the said Sir George Villiers, had expressed to him whilst he was a scholar in Leicestershire, as aforesaid; and that, out of that consideration, he believed that he loved him, and that therefore he made choice of him, the said Mr. Towse, to deliver a message to his son, the Duke of Buckingham, thereby to prevent such mischief as would otherwise befall the said Duke, whereby he would be inevitably ruined. And then, as I remember Mr. Towse told me, that the Apparition instructed him what message he should deliver to the Duke; unto which Mr. Towse replied that he should be very unwilling to go to the Duke of Bucks upon such an errand, whereby he should gaine nothing but reproach and contempt, and be esteemed a madman, and