The next station is Berkhamsted.  Cowper the poet was born here, his father was rector of the parish.  Berkhamsted Castle is part of the hereditary property of the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall.  At this castle William the Conqueror, after the battle of Hastings, met the Abbot of St. Albans with a party of chiefs and prelates, who had prepared to oppose the Norman, and disarmed their hostility by swearing to rule according to the ancient laws and customs of the country.  Having, of course, broken his oath, he bestowed the castle on his half-brother, Robert Moreton, Earl of Cornwall.  King John strengthened the castle, which was afterwards besieged by the Dauphin of France.  When Edward iii. created the Black Prince Duke of Cornwall, the castle and manor of Berkhamsted were bestowed upon him “to hold to him, and the heirs of him, and the eldest sons of the kings of England, and the dukes of the said place;” and under these words through civil wars and revolutions, and changes from Plantagenet to Tudor, from Tudor to Stuart, with the interregnum of a republic, an abdication, and the installation of the Brunswick dynasty.  The castle is now vested in Albert Prince of Wales.

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The Chiltern Hills, including the Chiltern Hundreds, the only office under the crown always open to the acceptance of all without distinction of parties, lies within a short distance of Berkhamsted.  Ashdridge Park, formerly the seat of the Duke of Bridgewater, the originator and author, with the aid of Brindley and Telford, of our great canal system, lies about a mile to the eastward.  The scenery of the park and gardens are fine.  The house is modern.

Tring station, a mile and a half from the town, may be reached from London, 31.5 miles, in less than an hour by the express train, and the traveller arrives in as wild a district as any in England.  Three miles north of Tring lies the town of Ivinghoe, possessing a large cruciform church, worthy of a visit from the students of “Christian architecture,” with an old sculptured timber roof, and containing a tomb with a Norman French inscription,—­according to some the tomb of Henry de Blois, Bishop of Winchester, brother of King Stephen.  At the Rose and Crown we are informed venison is to be had in perfection at moderate charges during the season.  The station is the highest point on the line, being 420 feet above the sea, 300 above Camden Town, and 52 above Birmingham.

In the course of the Tring excavation in the gravel deposits above the chalk, the tusk and teeth of an elephant were found, and in crossing the Icknield or Roman Way, about thirty-three miles, were sixteen human skeletons, and several specimens of Roman pottery:  two unique urns are now in the possession of the Antiquarian Society.

Two miles from Tring we pass from Hertfordshire into Buckinghamshire.  It remains a disputed point whether the name of the county is derived from bucken or boccen, a deer, according to Spelman, or with Lysons, boc, a charter, or with Camden from bucken, beech trees, which, as in his time, still abound and flourish.  Unfortunately the state of agriculture does not allow the pastors of the country to take the ease and rest that was enjoyed by the celebrated Mr. Tityrus before the repeal of the Roman corn laws, an ease which has cost many an unfortunate schoolboy a flogging.