366 THE GARDEN-CRAFT OF SHAKESPEARE 
indeed, no gardening book of the date seems to have been 
considered complete if it did not give the “latest designs,”and 
they seem to have much tried the wit and ingenuity of the 
gardeners, as they must have also sorely tried their patience to 
keep them in order; and I doubt not that the efficiency of an 
Elizabethan gardener was as much tested by his skill and 
experience in “ knot-work,” as the efficiency of a modern gar¬ 
dener is tested by his skill in “ bedding-out,” which is the lineal 
descendant of “knot-work.” In one most essential point, 
however, the two systems very much differed. In “ bedding- 
out ” the whole force of the system is spent in producing 
masses of colours, the individual flowers being of no import¬ 
ance, except so far as each flower contributes its little share of 
colour to the general mass; and it is for this reason that so 
many of us dislike the system, not only because of its mono¬ 
tony, but more especially because it has a tendency “ to teach 
us to think too little about the plants individually, and to look 
at them chiefly as an assemblage of beautiful colours. It is 
difficult in those blooming masses to separate one from another; 
all produce so much the same sort of impression. The con¬ 
sequence is people see the flowers on the beds without caring 
to know anything about them or even to ask their names. It 
was different in the older gardens, because there was just 
variety there ; the plants strongly contrasted with each other, 
and we were ever passing from the beautiful to the curious. 
Now we get little of quaintness or mystery, or of the strange 
delicious thought of being lost or embosomed in a tall rich 
wood of flowers. All is clear, definite, and classical, the work 
of a too narrow and exclusive taste.”— Forbes Watson. The 
old “ knot-work ” was not open to this censure, though no 
doubt it led the way which ended in “bedding-out.” The 
beginning of the system crept in very shortly after Shake¬ 
speare’s time. Parkinson spoke of an arrangement of spring 
flowers which, when “ all planted in some proportion as near 
one unto another as is fit for them, will give such a grace to the 
garden that the place will seem like a piece of tapestry of 
many glorious colours, to encrease every one’s delight.” And 
