In a recent issue of Lippincotts Magazine, appeared a commendatory notice of the successful efforts of Robert Morris Copeland, in developing fine architectural and landscape effects wherever he had fully opportunity to carry out his plans.

The plan of Ridley Park was confided to him. He knew well how to compose his picture, arranging the groves and lakes in the most beautiful sequence, leaving sites for fine houses in the manner of pedestals for beautiful statues, and shading with discreet and natural veils the more utilitarian and prosaic features of the scene. He already had much experience in the laying out of towns on novel plans adapted to the situation. His improvement of parte of Newport had elevated his name into very proud notoriety. At Martha's Vineyard he built a summer village known as Oak Bluffs; on Long Island he designed a beautiful city of summer worship for the Methodists, half encampment and half metropolis - a very Jerusalem for loveliness; he established and designed an ornamental village on the seashore at Duxbury, near Boston; and planned another near Grantville, on the Boston and Albany railroad. He was also the author of an ingenious public plan for the improvement of Boston with a constellation of small parks and pleasure grounds, skillfully arranged in the portions where land is cheapest and most available.

Even in his temporary residence at Ridley, the restless itch of artistic skill did not permit him to leave the place without changing an eyesore into a master-piece. A little judicious rustic work transformed the farm-house assigned for his residence into a beautiful vine-clad chalet, and he surrounded it with spacious and rare flower beds, which look like cathedral windows lying on the ground. The railway station even at Ridley Park is a novel and interesting piece of architecture, bridging the whole breadth of the road, provided with elevators for the baggage, and fancifully sheeted with slate.