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MONG producers of fine pictures of various kinds it is the able and original illustrator who most quickly wins recognition and fame, and of all artists it is he who is the most necessary and most beneficial to civilization. Literature is certainly the enormous power for good that we know, but many books and periodicals would be maimed and incomplete if unaided by an illustrator of the right sort. For example, what a loss it would have been if that familiar little masterpiece, Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland," had been originally printed and published without the admirable illustrations of Sir John Tenniel !

Unfortunately, this happy unity between author and artist is none too general, and many contemporary illustrations, although not necessarily bad as pictures, are nevertheless "from the purpose," as Hamlet says, and actually fight against and weaken the text which they attempt to elucidate and emphasize.

Next after the illustrator it is probably the really able original etcher to whom fame comes quickly; and after him, in a descending scale, come the portrait

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painter, then the painter of other subjects, and, last of all in order of quick promotion, the sculptor. His statue or group cannot easily be multiplied, is difficult to move from place to place, and for these reasons must long remain comparatively unknown, while, on the contrary, the picture of the illustrator is examined by thousands of people in thousands of different places from the very day of its birth.

Of the many famous painters who thus won early recognition by means of etching or illustrating, or through both, I may mention Whistler, Sir John Everett Millais (late President of the London Royal Academy), the Frenchmen Meissonier and Charles Jacque, and one of our famous Philadelphians, Edwin A. Abbey, R.A. In company with these eminent names we may place the name of Mr. Pennell. If, unlike the others, he is not yet famous as a painter, it is solely because the publishers and the public have not hitherto allowed him the time necessary for the making of paintings in oils, water-colors, and pastels; but he has produced a few beautiful pictures of these kinds, although he has not yet

exhibited them. Moreover, he is still a young man.

Joseph Pennell-like Whistler, Abbey, and other famous artists of American birth-has won name and fame in Europe before American recognition came to him. He comes of good old Quaker stock, and was born at Philadelphia on the fourth of July, 1860. He is the son of the late Larkin Pennell, who was an eminent member of the Society of Friends, and whose first American ancestor came to our shores in company with William Penn when the latter made his second voyage from England to the province of Pennsylvania.

I think that pictorial art-like music, rich dress, and certain other artistic but worldly vanities—was disallowed by the sternly conscientious first followers of George Fox; but, be that as it may, Joseph Pennell from his early boyhood was resolved to become an artist, and that indomitable "backbone" which distinguishes him as a man must have made difficult things easy to him as a boy.

His training began at the Philadelphia Industrial Art School, and was continued and completed at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. This was during the years when that admirable man, the late James L. Claghorn, was its President. Mr. Claghorn belonged to the very best type of American citizenship; one of those essentially "big" and forceful men-president of this, chairman of that, trustee of the other public institution, but withal thoroughly democratic and quite devoid of all pretense or selfimportance. This was the man who first made me acquainted with the work of Joseph Pennell, who was not then twenty years old, and I well remember the glow of pride on Mr. Claghorn's handsome face as he showed me certain etchings representing street scenes in Philadelphia, and his remark, "This is original work by one of our own boys; now what do you say to that r

These first essays of the "'prentice hand were little more than the prophecy of what the master hand was to do later, and yet they were full of good augury. Some of the essential qualities were already manifest-such as the unerring eye for the picturesque, and also that

instinct for good drawing which we may compare to the delicate natural ear for music which renders it almost impossible for its happy possessor to sing a note out of tune. In both cases competent instructors can—and indeed must-develop and educate the gift which is inborn in a true artist; but if this gift is not there, the teachers can never create it. In the vital quality of appropriateness,

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contrasted with irrelevancy, Mr. Pennell's illustrations are certainly unsurpassed; and it would be as difficult to find among them a picture which does not materially aid the text as it would be to find one which, in itself, is not a veritable work of art. But besides his acknowledged power as a draughtsman for illustration, his technical knowledge of reproductive processes gives him a distinct advantage over most of his confrères, so that his drawing is pretty sure to "print well in the page of a magazine or book, because he knows so well how to make his picture with that particular end in view.

Another rare endowment is his peculiar faculty for giving to each one of his pictures its own true local aspect, so that there is no mistaking an American for an English scene or a Spanish for an Italian view. Very few artists possess this faculty of discarding their own particular national point of view and of absorbing the changed character of different foreign countries no two of which are alike. The opposite condition is strongly felt in the case of the portraits of Americans whom we know, and which are painted here by visiting foreign artists of considerable reputation; such pictures may display all the brilliant cleverness of the modern French school, and may even be good as likenesses, yet we are sure to suffer from the "Frenchy " flavor which the foreign artist has unconsciously superadded.

But all this while we are leaving Joseph Pennell as a promising young art student in peaceful Philadelphia, whereas his fame was to be won a thousand leagues from his native city. We must follow him to Europe, whither he went in the year 1884; but, if we let him go there alone, this chronicle would be so incomplete as to be quite worthless. Another

good Philadelphian must go with him, so inseparable for the last twenty years is the work of the two, although the one never does the particular work of the other.

I well remember hearing that man of genius, Henry Ward Beecher, say in a sermon, "When God gives a man a good wife, that man will thereafter have little need to pray to his Creator for other blessings." We all know of the beautiful union between Robert Browning and his wife Elizabeth; but this historic intellectual partnership was not more complete than that between Joseph and Elizabeth Robins Pennell.

The parallel is not without divergences. As poets the Brownings were (in a noble way) "two of a trade," while Mrs. Pennell never makes a picture— although she understands pictures so well; but, on the other hand, Mr. Pennell sometimes writes a book or a detached article, and this is the particular province of his wife. Another divergence from the parallel is that, while Mrs. Browning was strong in her intellect, her physical health was wretchedly feeble, whereas I verily believe that Mrs. Pennell hardly knows what it is to be tired either in mind or body, or, if she does, she never shows it.

The many Americans who have experienced her charming and simple h >spitality in London would, I am sure, like to have me go on and on with this part of my subject, and it is with an effort that I "keep my mouth as with a bit and bridle," and shorten all that I would like to say in my enthusiasm for Mrs. Pennell. We all know her books and magazine articles, but it is not so generally known that she is the writer of the widely read London letters of art criticism, signed "N. N.," which for years have regularly appeared in the New York "Evening Post and in the "Nation." To me these articles are the best of their kind; at least, I have learned more from them than from the writings of any other of the excellent writers of contemporary art criticism, for not only is their author endowed with "the pen of the ready writer," and thoroughly equipped with knowledge and understanding of her subject, but she also takes the pains to

gather and then distribute definite, timely, and accurate information concerning art and artists. Her latest book, as yet unpublished, is the biography of her own uncle, Charles Godfrey Leland, whose "Hans Breitmann Ballads "" made him famous a generation ago, and whose books on the Gypsies are so well known. A much thinner disguise than Mrs. Pennell's "N. N.”—which is simply two letters taken from the middle of her surname is in the case of the ubiquitous "J- ," a gentleman who figures so interestingly in her books of travel; but intelligent readers will have small difficulty in guessing the identity of this mysterious "J"1

Thus it was that this bright and enthusiastic young couple left Philadelphia and settled in London; and thus began their notable artistic and literary work of the last twenty years. To illustrate their position, let us consider the familiar case of new and intelligent tenants taking possession of an old house. The former tenants may have been intelligent also, but they had grown so used to their surroundings that they never once thought of the many improvements which were obvious enough to the newcomers. It was with the spirit of these new tenants, then, that Mr. and Mrs. Pennell came to "discover" Europe in the year 1884. Things and scenes which were ordinary matters of course to the native Londoners, or the natives of other parts of Europe, were to the young American couple intensely interesting novelties; and it was thus that they saw and felt them, and thus that they described them in picture and book.

Some of the earlier books or single articles which Mr. Pennell illustrated in Europe were written by his wife. The first of these books was "Our Canterbury Pilgrimage," published in 1885. Then followed "Two Pilgrims' Progress (1886), and "Our Sentimental Journey (1887). Later came Mrs. Pennell's charming book "In Gypsyland," which leads the reader through untrodden ways in southeastern Europe. In 1889 appeared "Our Journey to the Hebrides,” and in 1890 "The Stream of Pleasure," which was jointly written by Mr. and Mrs. Pennell, as was also that