Art Out-of-Doors 
hood ; but farther away the design might 
gradually pass into informality, until a nat- 
uralistic plantation of shrubs should encircle 
the boundaries and mask all but the most 
desirable points of outlook from the house. 
In smaller grounds a more consistently 
formal scheme would often be appropriate — 
some truly architectural arrangement of 
trees and shrubs and flower-beds. And 
there are spots in Newport where an artist 
would hardly object even if the trees and 
shrubs were clipped to symmetrical shapes. 
In the very smallest grounds one or two trees 
near the house or the gate might suffice, and 
the whole of the ground be given up to a 
formal flower-garden, either with plots of 
grass and French parterres, as in the little 
parks of Paris, or with freely growing flow- 
ers in rectangular box - edged borders, af- 
ter the old colonial scheme, or even with 
carpet-bedding carefully designed and con- 
sistently employed, as in the courtyard of 
Charlecote Hall — a background of gravel 
being preferable then to the background of 
grass which usually throws the vivid colors 
of such beds into undue relief. Very small 
178 
