BRIDGES (ROBERT, 1844-1930, poet laureate and physician) GOOD AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED ('Robert Bridges'), to [Stephen] Paget, about science and medicine, giving his opinion at length on the possible amalgamation of medical societies and its role in Britain ('...I sh[oul]d like to tell you my ancient views on this matter...about 20 years ago I tried all I could to interest the leading scientific medical and "philosophical" people in the following notion...'), proposing that medical societies should 'be encouraged and instructed to make themselves into general scientific societies' and 'be formally affiliated to the Royal Society' ('...The main object of this was to get a body of scientific opinion in the country organised...'), stating the objections to his argument ('...scientific men were as much guilty of political party prejudice as others...'), and reiterating the main objectives of a collective medical society ('...I sh[oul]d like to see an amalgamation which sh[oul]d...make science a power to be reckoned with by our politicians - just as now they recognise the church...'); Bridges also denounces the Royal Academy ('...I think the yearly feast of the Royal Academy an insult to science...a trades union of secondrate artists of one kind - its object being to make money for the members...it usurps the plea of the Royal Society...') and ends with 'I don't yet see the "poetry" anywhere', 7 pages, octavo, St. Columbs, Foxcombe Hill, Oxford, March 14 [no year, but 1905]

The recipient is likely to have been Stephen Paget (1855-1926), son of Sir James Paget, who like Bridges was a medical student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and was best known for his essays and his attempts to enlighten the public in the cause of modern medicine. Henry Newbolt, in his obituary of Robert Bridges in The Times of 22 April 1930, asserted that Bridges had become a doctor in order 'to practise medicine until he was forty, when he would retire; the experience would give him knowledge of men for his work as a poet'. Although he had given up medicine in the early 1880s, this letter demonstrates his continuing involvement with science. It can be dated from his very short residence at Foxcombe Hill in Oxford. Good letters by Bridges are scarce.

£280