he was visited by Forster, Dickens and others.  George Chapman translated much of Homer at Hitchin, and is believed to have been born in that town.  Young, the author of the Night Thoughts, was for many years Rector of Welwyn; his son was visited there by Boswell and Dr. Johnson.  Macaulay was at school at Aspenden.  John Scott, the Quaker poet, lived at Amwell; Lee, the dramatist, was born at Hatfield.  Skelton probably stayed at Ashridge just before the Dissolution of the Monasteries; Sir Thomas More lived awhile at Gobions, North Mimms.  Cowper was born at Berkhampstead.  The county has been immortalised by Walton and Lamb in writings known to all.

[Footnote 2:  As most readers are aware, it is now, to say the least, gravely questioned whether “Sir John Maundeville” was ever more than a name.]

2. Divines.—­Bunyan laboured and preached much in Hitchin and its neighbourhood; Baxter preached at Sarratt and elsewhere, and lived awhile at Totteridge; Isaac Watts lived for many years at Theobalds near Cheshunt; Philip Doddridge was at school at St. Albans.  Fox, in his Journal, mentions visiting Hitchin, Baldock and other places.  Tillotson was a curate at Cheshunt; Ken was born at Little Berkhampstead; Nathaniel Field, a man of prodigious learning, chaplain to James I., was born at Hemel Hempstead.  William Penn, whom many considered a divine indeed, lived with his beautiful wife at Basing House, Rickmansworth; Godwin was an Independent minister at Ware.  Ridley and Bonner were much in the county.  Fleetwood, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, was Rector of Anstey; Cudworth was Vicar of Ashwell; Warham was Rector of Barley; Horsley was Rector of Thorley.  The two Sherlocks, respectively Master of the Temple and Bishop of London, were Rectors of Therfield.  Lightfoot, the Great Hebraist, was Rector of Great Munden.

To classify other celebrities connected with the county would require almost as many headings as names.  Henry Bessemer was born at Charlton near Hitchin; Cardinal Wolsey lived at Delamere House, Great Wymondley; the munificent Somers lived at North Mimms; Nicholas Breakspeare, who became Pope Adrian IV., was born at Abbots Langley; Piers Gaveston was much at Berkhampstead and was buried in the priory church at King’s Langley; Sir Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury, lived at Theobalds and is buried at Hatfield; Lords Melbourne and Palmerston lived much at Brocket Hall, where the latter died; Sir Ralph Sadleir, statesman and ambassador to Scotland, who is said to have rallied the English at Pinkie, lived at Standon and is buried in the church.