GATES AND GATEWAYS 93 



brought to very great perfection, and magnificent 

 compositions in ironwork were constructed as open 

 screens sometimes as the frontispiece of the whole 

 garden or again as a semi-background to a fine 

 scheme of garden colour. No one who has sat for 

 any length of time in the gardens of New College, 

 Oxford, can forget the exquisite effect of the screen 

 and gates which divide the College buildings from 

 the lawns. There the plan of the advancing and 

 recessed rails, the fine sweep of the delicate scroll- 

 work, and the rich outline of the whole design, 

 combine to invest the scene with an impressive 

 beauty. Nothing enhances the effect of flower and 

 foliage so much as this whimsical and graceful metal 

 work, and although it is, on account of its costliness, 

 within the reach of the few only, it is greatly to be 

 desired that the finest product of the smith's craft 

 should receive the encouragement and patronage 

 which it deserves. 



