The Sun.
London, England, 1869-08-03 00:00:00

Christian faith whose earliest British martyr Nadi

bequeathed his name to St. Alban's. (Cheers.)
When they passed to the age of the Anglo-Sax,ms
their vestiges in that country surrounded them on
every side. The names of places familiar as house-
hold words marked their residences. And here he
might observe that the main reason why the lan-
guage of the Anglo-Saxon had survived the Nor-
man invasion, and finally supplanted the language
of the Conqueror, did not appear to him to have
been clearly stated by our historians. He believed
the reason to be really this. The language that
men spoke in after life was formed in the nursery ;
it was learned from the lips of the mother. The
adventurers of Scandinavian origin who established
themselves in Normandy did not select their wives
in Scandinavia, but in France, and thus their chil-
dren learnt in the nursery the French language. In
like manner, when they conquered tho e
who were still unmarried had the boo i t sto to seek
their wit es among the Saxons, and thus the lan-

gunge of the mothers naturally became that of the
childre2, and being also the language of the
servants employed in the household, the French
language necessarily waned, receded, and at last
became merged into the domestic element of the
Anglo-saxon, retaining only such of is native
liveliness and adaptability to metrical rhyme and
cadence as enriched the earliest utterance of our
English poetry in the muse, at once grave and
spoi!ive, at once courtly and popular, which in-
spired the lips of Chaucer. (Cheers.) In the
county in which they were assembled were the
scenes of fierce, heroic conflict between the Saxons
and the Danes. Where now stood the town of
Ware anchored the light vessels which constituted
the Danish navy as it sailed from London along the
Thames to the entrance of the river Lea. There
they besieged the town of llertford, and there the
remarkable genius of Alfred the Great, at once
astute and patient, studying the nature of the river,
diverted its stream into three channels, and stranded
the Danish vessels, which thus became an easy prey
to the Londoners. (Cheers.) Nor was the coun-
try destitute of memorials of the turbulent ages
which followed the Norman conquest. When Prince
Louis of France invaded England no stronghold,
with the exception of Dover, resisted his siege with
more valour or with greater loss to the invaders
than the Castle of Hertford, and under the soil
around its walls lay the bones of many an invading
Frenchman. At St. Alban's, on the 22d of May,
1455, Henry VI. pitched his standard against the
armies of the White Rose led by Richard, Duke of
York, and the great Earls of Warwick and Salis-
bury, and then again, on the 17th of February,
1461, Henry VI. was brought from Loudon to be
the reluctant witness and representative of a con-
flict against his Queen, who, however, delivered him
from the custody of the Yorkists, and sullied her
victory by such plunder and cruelty as a few days
afterwards insured the Crown to Edward IV. On
the summit of Christ Church tower, at Hadley, was
still to be seen the lantern which, according to tra-
dition, lighted the forces of Edward IV. through
the dense fog, which the superstition of the time be-
lieved to have been raised by the incantation of
Friar Bungay, and through the veil of that fog was
fought the battle of Barnet, where the power of the
great feudal barons expired with Warwick, the
king-maker, and a new era in the records of liberty
aid civil progress practically commenced. Fur he
was convinced from a somewhat careful study of
that time that the contest between the houses of
York and Lancaster was not a mere dispute of title
to the throne, or a mere rivalry for power between
the great feudal chiefs. The House of Lancaster
with its monkish King represented a more intole-
rant spirit of Papal persecution ; it was under that
house that the great religious reformers had been
mercilessly condemned to the gibbet and the flames,
and the martyrdom of the Lollards under Henry
IV. and Henry V. left a terrible legacy of wrath and
doom to Henry VI. Besides the numerous d, seen-
dants of these Lollards, large bo lies of the Church
itself, including the clergy, were favourable to reli-
gious reform, and these were necessarily alienated
fr,in the House of Lancaster and inclined to the
house of York. With the House of York, too,
were the gre It centres of energy and intelligence,
London and the powerful trading cities. The com-
mercial spirit established a certain familiar sym-
pathy with Edward IV., who was himself a mer-
chant, venturing commercial speculations in ships
fitted out by himself. Thus the Battle of Barnet
was fought between the new ideas and the old, and
those new ideas which gave power to the middle
class in the reign of II mry VII., and rendered the
religious reformation in the reign of Henry VIII.
yoyular in spite of its violent excesses, shared at
Barnet the victory of the King under whom was
established the first printing-press known in Eng-
land. (Cheers.) But Hertfordshire had also fur-
nished the birthplace or the home of no inconsider-
able persons. According to tradition Cashiobury
was the Royal seat of Cassibelaunus, and passing to
the noble family that now held its domains, it
found an owner as brave as its old British possessor
in the first Lord Capel, faithful in life and in death
to the cause of Charles I. (Cheers.) King's
Langley was the birthplace of Edmund de Langley,
the brave son of Edward 111., and close beside it
was born Nicholas Brakespeare, afterwards Pope
Adrian IV. Moor Park was identified with the
names of Cardinal Wolsey and the ill-fated Duke
of Monmouth. Sir John Mandeville, the famous
traveller, who, if he invented his travels, certainly
beat them all in the art of romance—(a laugh)—
was a native of St. Alban's. Panshanger was as-
sociated with the name of Cowper, while the de-
lighted essayist, Charles Lamb, boasted his descent
from Hertfordshire. Future archasologists will
revere at Brocket the residence of the two distin-
guished men who swayed the destinies of the coun-
try in our time as First Ministers of the Crown—
Lords Melbourne and Palmerston, akin by family
connection, akin still more by the English attributes
they held in common—an exquisite geniality of
temper united with a robust and simple manli-
ness of character. (Cheers.) At Hatfield, mem-
bers of the Association would find a place stored
with brilliant memories and associations. There
still stood the tower from the window of which,
according to tradition, the Princess Elizabeth envied
the lot of the humble milkmaid, and there was still
seen the trunk of the oak under which she heard
the news of her accession to the throne. And
what Englishman—nay, what stranger from the
foreign nations to which, conjointly with the
posterity of his native land, Francis Bacon
[ intrusted the verdict to be pronounced on
his labours and his name, would not feel
that he was on haunted ground when he entered
the domain of Gorhambury and examined the re-
mains of the abode on which the Shakespeare of
Philosophy united the most various knowledge of
mankind with the deepest research into the secrets
of nature and the elements of human thought ?
(Cheers.) After remarking that almost every
town, hamlet, or manor house in Hertfordshire
was invested with historical attractions, Lord
Lytton in conclusion said—So long as we keep the
past before us as a guide, we have, speaking
humanly, and with due submission to the decrees
of Providence, some power to shape the future, so
as to preserve, throughout all its changes, that na-
tional spirit without which the unity of a race dis-
appears. It has been vouchsafed to England to
diffuse her children and her language amid realms
unknown to the ambition of Alexander, and spread-
ing far beyond the boldest flight of the Homan
eagles. (Cheers.) Ages hence, from the shores of
Auszalasia acid Areetica, pilgrims will visit this
land as the birthplace of their ancestors, and vene-
rate every relic of our glorious if chequered past,
from the day of the Druid to that in which we live.
For while we speak we are making history, and
becoming in our turn the ancients to posterity.
May no future Gibbon trace to the faults of our
times the causes which insure the decline and fall
of umpire! Century after century may our des-
cende.nts in those vast new worlds, compared
to which Europe itself shrinks into the di-
mensions of a province or a shire, find still flourish-
ing on these ancestral shores, not ashamed to num-
ber the men of this day among its fathers, a race
adc rued by the graces of literature and enriched
by the stores of science ! May they find still un-
impAired, and sacred alike from superstition and

abelisf, th 3 altars of Christian faith ! Still may

our havens and docks be animated by vessels fitted
for commerce abroad, and armed in case of need
for defence at borne; Still may our iustitations
and our liberties find the eloquence of freemen and
patriots in our legislative halls, and the ermine of
justice be unsullied by a spot in the courts where
she adjudicates between man and man ! These are
the noblest legacies we receive from the past, and
while we treasure these at every hazard and
through every change, the soul of England will
retain vitality to her form, and no arcba3logist
will seek her grave amid the nations that have
passed away.

The noble President resumed his seat amid con-
tinued applause.

Lord HOUGHTON desired on behalf of the associ-
ation to return their best thanks for the speech
which had been delivered to them by one in whom
they all recognized the master of fiction, and who,
though the first of our novelists, was not the last
of our barons. (Cheers and laughter.) Their
noble president, not content with the success which
he bad achieved in the different paths of English
literature, had gone into the arena of political life,
and had shown by his example that it was possible
for a man of letters to be at the same time a man
of action. (Cheers.)
The Bishop of ROCHESTER, in seconding the mo-
tion, expressed a hope that the spirit of explora-
tion which had brought so many visitors to the
neighbourhood would be attended by a spirit of
restoration, which would be perceptible in the fu-
ture appearance of the noble Abbey of St. Alban's.
Lord LYTTON, in acknowledging the compliment,
expressed his gratification at being able, in so short
a time, to show their visitors so many of the beau-
ties of Hertfordshire. (Laughter and cheers.) He
trusted that some of them would at some future
time renew their acquaintance with those charming
objects, whose chief attraction could scarcely be
said to be their antiquity. (Cheers and laughter.)

Later in the afternoon the members of the asso-
ciation paid a visit to the Abbey of St. Alban's,
where, under the guidance of Mr. Gordon Hills,
they were instructed in the history of that noble
building, and in the evening a dinner was given in
the Townhall, under the presidency of Lord Lytton.
To-day an excursion will be made to Redbourne
and to Dunstable.

REC:NT ACCIDENTS.—A telegram sent from
Philadelphia,!on Wednesday, announces a fear:al accident
as having occurred on the previous day on the Memphis
and Ohio Railroad, near Clarksville, Tennessee. A pas-
senger train fell through a bridge, and all the cars but one
were burnt, six persons being killed and thirty wounded.

TLis follows with but little interval on the Erie Railroad

accident of Wednesday, July 14, of which we have now
full details by mail. The night express from New York
at 6.30 p.m., ran into a freight train while going at a
speed of 35 miles an hour, the carriages being driven
into each other, shutting up like a telescope ; then, catch-
ing fire they were burnt up, ten persons killed, and
fifteen others dangerously Lin t. This accident was
caused by the engine-driver of the freight train. At Mast-
Hope station a freight train remains upon a siding until two
passenger trains which do not stop there have passed.
The driver was roused up from his sleep at mid-
night cn hearing the first train rush by, and believing
it to be the second got his own into motion, and
a hen on the track the "express" came up, and this dread-
ful accident was the result. Some of the circumstaeces
attending the catastrophe are of peculiar horror. The way
in which the carriages had been driven into each other
crushed the passengers between the timbers, and held
them there while the fire progressed, which burnt them to
death. Among the victims was the Rev. S. B. Hallock,
of East Fourteenth-street, New York, who seems to have
borne his fate with an extraordinary resignation and com-
posure, conversing with his fellow-passengers who were
trying to release him, and when it became evident that
there was no hope, conveying, through them, his last
directions. Ile was accompanied by his brother-in-law,
who used every effort in vain to extricate his legs from the
timbers between which they were jammed. His body
was the least burnt, the others recovered being charred
beyond recognition. The train started with nine cars,
namely, one postal car, one A. and G. W. express and
baggage car, ono Erie baggage car, a smoking car,
one dty passenger car, and four sleeping coaches.
Both locomotives were completely shattered, the express
one being overturned, and, scattering its fire, caused the
conflagration. The only witness of the collision was the
flagman of the freight train and a German who lives near,
who, beieg aroused by the fire, came up to aid. The for-
ward cars presented a heap of ruins, but those in rear
comparatively escaped injury, and the passengers in them
were able to give what little assis!anco could be tendered.
One gentleman, John Hunt, was jammed between the seats
with his leg broken, and was fairly dragged by main strength
from the ruins just in time to save his life. The spot
was a curve of the line round which the express dashed,
just as the freight train got on the track, but singular
to relate the engineers and firemen escaped with slight
injuries; how they are both unable to tell. The station is
situated at a bend in the Delaware River, around which the
road runs a few rods from the shore. In the back-ground
a range of hills rises, sloping down to the water's edge.
All those burnt to death were in the smoking car, through
which the baggage car was almost entirely driven, pinning
the passengers to the seats. The station was totally de-
stroyed, as were nearly all the mails, and out of 157
articles of baggage only 11 were preserved. Most of the
passengers were German emigrants. Mr. Halleck was
born at Brookhaven, L. 1., Feb. 24, 1804. He commenced
preaching in 1838, and was settled over the Fifth So-
ciety of the Universalist Church, and was also Principal of
the Mechanics' Institute School. He retired from the pulpit
about 12 years ago. This gentleman was a prominent
Mason and Odd Fellow, and had written a book on Odd
Fellowship. He was also publisher of The Ambassador,
now Leader, and for several years editor of an Odd Fel-
lows' periodical. Mr. Hallock was on his way to Ilillowog,
Broome County, at the time of his death. His remains
will be interred at Binghampton. The coroner's verdict
attributes the accident to the recklessness of James Griffin,
engineer of the freight train, exonerating every one else
from blame, and a warrant being issued, Griffin was imme-
diately arrested at Snlamanca, and brought to Groat Bend
the same evening. The railroad men speak very highly of
Miller's patent couplers and buffers, which were on the
cars except the smoking car, and which undoubtedly saved
the train from a general breaking up. Attention has been
directed by the frequency of these accidents to the neces-
sity of employing iron cars, as the most serious catastophes
always end in fire, indeed many of the victims would have
escaped with but little injury had they not been jammed
or penned into a burning carriage, as was the case in
the terrible accident in England on the Holyhead
line.—A train ran off the Union Pacific Railroad, near
Antelope station, 450 miles west of Omaha, whereby
the engine, baggage car, and three passenger cars
were smashed up. A fireman and a passenger named
Duyer, of Maryland, were killed ; the engineer, Nicholas
Weeks of Maine, and two passengers, Alexander Wagstaff
of St Louis, and John Steele of Cumberland, England,
were badly injured. The accident was caused, as have
been several others, by heavy rains undermining the road.
A discharged soldier was killed by another passenger
train getting off the track, and a freight train in the same
place had just run off the road. An excursion train went
through a bridge near Lawrence, Kansas, on the 14th inst.,
and, among others, the following gentlemen were injured :
.—J. D. Herkemer, General Superintendent of the St Louis
and Indianapolis Railroad, slightly ; Jno. Perkins, Presi-
dent of the Bank of Commerce of Cleveland, slightly ;
Frank Ford, Chief Engineer of the Cleveland, Columbus,
and Cincinnati Road—an ugly scalp wound in the head ;
ho is otherwise seriously but not fatally injured;
E. S. Flint, Superintendent of the same road, slightly;
Lucien Hills, of the same road, wounded about
the head, and otherwise injured, but not danger-
ously; E. King, Treasurer of the Cleveland, Colum-
bus, and Indianapolis Road, right arm fractured ;
J. C. Noyes, Freight Agent of the Indianapolis and St.
Louis Road, badly, but not supposed fatally injured ; Eben
Noyes, of St. Louis, slightly; General Graft, of the Terre
Haute Express, injured about the head and shoulders ; J.
D. Beach, of the Bank of Terre Haute, badly bruised and
jammed ; B. W. Hanna, Attorney of the Indianapolis and
St. Louis Road, left leg hurt and otherwise bruised ; Wm.
Mack, of Terre Haute, bad wound on nose and face ; Gen.
Coburn, of Indiana, slightly injured; Gen. Burnett, of
Cleveland, seriously injured ; Roderick King slightly
hurt ; Joseph Barnard, conductor, badly hurt; James
Robot is (coloured), badly hurt and burn .d ; a brakeman,
supposed to be fatally injured ; Charles Hicks, of Cleve-
land, slightly injured; H. N. Johnson, of The Cleveland
Herald, slight fracture of his arm. A tremendous smash
occurred on the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific Rail-
road near Peru, by two freight trains running into each
other, whereby nine cars were demolished, but no one
was hurt.

T. French and Challoner left Goodwood on Friday
evening en route to Deauville, where the former is engaged
to ride Honesty and Friday, and the latter for the Duke of
Hamilton on Sunday.

[ADvEirrisEmExT.] —Holloway's Ointment and Pills.—
Childreu's Complaints.—While the weekly roturn of mor-
tality shows a decrease of deaths from smallpox it displays
an &arming increase in fatal cases of measles and scarla-
tina. Such unfortunate issue would not result wore
mothers and nurses to rub Holloway's ointment upon the
glands of the neck, upper part of the chest, and upon the
loins, when symptoms of scarlet fever or measles first ap-
pear; or, oven after the eruption has come out, the lungs
and kidneys would ho relieved. The ointment penetrating,
through the skin to the glands always stimulates them o
throw out a full eruption, which is the safety valve of both
diselses. Holloway's pills should be given to lessen ;be
fever, and reduce the irritation.