The castle courts, except the center one, are beautifully carpeted with green turf, which gives them a very pleasant aspect.  In the center of the second court is a lion with his paw on a ball, a copy of one of the lions of St. Mark at Venice....

The inner court is square, with the corners taken off; and on the wall opposite to the entrance are medallion portraits of the first Duke and Duchess.  Near the gateway appear the old wheels and axle which worked the great well, over which is the figure of a pilgrim blessing the waters.  Within the gateway you enter an octagon tower, where the old dungeon still remains in the floor, covered with its iron grate.  It is eleven feet deep, by nine feet eight inches and a half square at the bottom.  In the court are two other dungeons, now or formerly used for a force-pump to throw water up to the top of the castle; and one now not used at all—­which could all be so closed down as to exclude the prisoners from both sound and light....

Having wandered thus around this noble pile, it is time to enter it.  Of the interior, however, I shall not say much more than that it is at once a fitting modern residence for a nobleman of the high rank and ancient descent of the proprietor, and in admirable keeping with its exterior.  The rooms are fitted up with light Gothic tracery on the walls, very chaste and elegant; and the colors are so delicate and subdued, that you are not offended with that feeling of over-fineness that is felt at Raby.

You ascend by a noble staircase, surrounded with armorial escutcheons instead of a cornice, to a suite of very spacious and handsome rooms, of which the principal are the saloon, dining-room, breakfast-room, library, and chapel.  The ceilings are finely worked into compartments with escutcheons and pendants.  The walls of the saloon are covered with crimson silk, sprigged with yellow flowers; those of the dining-room, with pale buff, and white moldings, rich tracery and elegant compartmented ceiling.  In the center of some of the arches you see the crescent, the crest of the Percys.

On the whole, it is a noble and highly satisfactory mansion; but still it is when you get without again that you feel the real antiquity and proud dignity of the place.  The fame of the Percy and the Douglas seems to be whispered by every wind that plays around those old towers.

Hampton court [Footnote:  From “Visits to Remarkable Places.”]

BY WILLIAM HOWITT

To the visitors of cultivated taste and historic knowledge, Hampton Court abounds with subjects of reflective interest of the highest order.  It is true, that, compared with some of our palaces, it can lay no claims to antiquity; but from the days of Henry VIII. to those of George III., there are few of them that have witnessed more singular or momentous events.