SAINT, a market town of Hertfordshire, on the north-west road from London, at the distance of 21 miles, and containing 3653 inhabitants in 1811. This town sends two members to parliament, gives the title of duke to the noble family of Beaufecle, and has one of the best markets for wheat in England. St Alban's is seated near the ruins of the ancient Roman city, by Tacitus called Verulam; and by the Saxons Watlingcester, because it is seated on the road called Watling-street. Nothing now remains of Verulam but the ruins of old walls; in the fields adjacent to which they continue to find Roman coins as they formerly found tesselated pavements. In memory of St Alban, Offa, king of the Mercians, anno 795, erected an abbey, calling it St Alban's; and near it the town of the same name was afterwards built. The church of the abbey is remaining to this day: time and the weather have made it look like stone on the outside; but if you break a bit off, the redness of the brick immediately appears. When the monasteries were dissolved, the townsmen paid 400l. to prevent its being levelled with the ground, and have since converted it into a parish-church, which, for its largeness, beauty, and antiquity, claims a particular regard. It had a very noble font of solid brass, in which the children of the kings of Scotland were used to be baptized; and was brought from Edinburgh, by Sir Philip Lea, when the city was in flames; but in the times of the late civil wars it was taken away. Not many years since, a tomb was discovered in this church, said to be that of Humphry duke of Gloucester: when the leaden coffin was opened, the body was pretty entire, being preserved in a sort of pickle. There was a stately cross in the middle of the town, as there was in many other places, where Queen Eleanor's body rested when it was brought out of the north for interment at Westminster; but it is now demolished. W. Long. 0. 12. N. Lat. 51. 44.