HISTORICAL GARDENS 
291 
of such slow and stately growth. The Preachers’ Court 
and the smaller Pensioners’ Court are like college quad¬ 
rangles, with that perfect turf that England alone pro¬ 
duces. The smooth surface is broken only by the 
regular intersecting gravel paths, and one row of mul¬ 
berry trees some seventy years old. The red-brick 
buildings have a venerable appearance, although they 
do not carry the weight of centuries with dignity, like 
the “ Wash-house Court/’ the hall, the library, or the 
brick cloister, and the delightful old walls with their 
deliciously-scented fig-trees. The whole place has a 
mediaeval look and feeling, and teems with ghosts and 
recollections of the monks of the early peaceful days, 
and their courageous successors at the Dissolution. The 
pious founder, as the chorus of the old Carthusian 
melody says, must not be forgotten 
“ Then blessed be the memory 
Of good old Thomas Sutton, 
Who gave us lodging, learning, 
As well as beef and mutton.” 
Of the shades which surround these peaceful green 
courts none appear more real than that of Colonel 
Newcome. The guardian will point out the room in 
which he died, or his pew in the chapel, as if he 
belonged to history as much as Wray, who bequeathed 
the old books in the “ Officers’ Library,” or any of the 
well-known pensioners. With such true and pathetic 
touches has Thackeray drawn the character of Colonel 
Newcome that fiction has here become entwined round 
the walls almost as closely as fact. 
Further eastward is an open piece of ground, which is 
hardly a garden; but as it is green, and took the place of 
what was known as the Artillery Garden, it may claim a 
