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 hospitality 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 criticisms, 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. One of her books 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”! Her magnum opus is unquestionably the Life of Whistler, a monumental work in the writing of which her husband collaborated.

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-five 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

THE HOUSE WHERE WHISTLER DIED
Size of the original print, 8 by 11 inches.

Whistler's house-No. 74 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea is the one to the immediate left of the tree which stands to the right in the etching.

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 Gypsy-land, 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 important book, Lithography and Lithographers (1898).

Of books written entirely by Joseph Pennell we have Pen Drawing and Pen Draughtsmen (to which I shall devote a separate paragraph later on); Modern Illustration (1895); The Illustration of Books (1896), being the course of lectures delivered by him at the Slade Art School; and The Work of Charles Keene (1897).