Review of Rerieirs, 1/9/13. 



673 



THE NEW LAUREATE. 



AX EARLY PORTRAIT OP DLt. BRIDGES. 



The new Poet Laureate is perhaps less 

 known to the general body of readers 

 than any other English poet of his 

 standuig. Yet he is in his 70th year, and 

 has been known and hj\ed by the men 

 and women of his own craft and those 

 interested in it ever since the publication 

 in 1890 of that thin volume of " Shorter 

 Poems" which contains the flower of 

 his early verse. 



A ]\ 'ASTER CRAFTSMAN. 

 When the young poets who collabo- 

 rated in the recent volume of " Georgian 

 Poetr}^ 1911-12 " sought a fit person to 

 whom to dedicate their verse, they turned 

 to Robert Bridges, as to a master crafts- 

 man. The truth is that the special gifts 

 of Dr. Bridges, his exquisite restraint, 

 and his constant striving after metrical 

 perfection do not necessarily make a 

 popular appeal ; while his investigation 

 of metre and the laws of music in verse, 

 beyond value to the writer of verse, are 

 too technical for the ordinary reader. 



LINES ON THE THAMES. 

 Then, too, Dr. Bridges is a recluse, 

 who is very rarely drawn from his quiet 

 retreat at Boar's Hill. Not even the 

 man\- ties which bind him to Oxford 

 have induced him to live in the city, but 



CRITIC AND POET. 



By MARGARET BRYANT. : 



he has made his retreat in the quiet coun- 

 try overlooking the Thames Valley. No 

 one of the many sons of Oxford who 

 have lauded the river have done so with 

 more genial simplicity : — 



"We left the city when the suiumer day 

 Had verged already on its hot decline, 

 And charmed Indolence in languor lay 

 In her gay gardens, "neath her tou'ers 



divine : 

 " Fairewell," we .said, "dear city of y<nith 



and dream." 

 And in our boat we stepped, and took the 



stream. 



BRILLIANT PHYSICIAN. 

 It is now thirty years since he aban- 

 doned a brilliant medical career for the 

 art and science of poetry. Educated at 

 Eton and Oxford, he took his medical 

 degrees from Bart.'s, and was attached 

 to the regular staff of that hospital. 

 Later he held appointments at the Great 

 Ormond-street Hospital for Children 

 and at the Great Northern till 18S2. He 

 was already known as the writer of 

 graceful lyrics, for the most part pri- 

 vately printed. 



EARLY POEMS. 

 The fashion for experimenting in 

 various metres and in old forms of verse 

 had not set m when he published his 

 little volume of ]:)oeins in 1873. That 

 book contained the first English trio- 

 let : — 



When first we met we did not guess 

 Tlnat Love would prove so hard a master; 

 Of more than common friendlines.s 

 When fir.st we met we did not guess. 

 Who could foretell this sore distress. 

 This irretrievable disaster. 

 AMien first we met ? — We did not guess 

 That Love would prove so hard a master. 



In 1883 "Prometheus, a Mask in the 

 Greek Manner," was privately printed at 

 Oxford ; two years later came " Eros 

 and Psyche," a charming version of the 

 tale of Apuleius ; the sonnet sequence of 

 the " Growth of Love," and a series of 

 dramas, most of them on classical sub- 

 jects, but drawn in one or two cases 

 from Spanish and Portuguese drama. 



