This is no time to sell Nash short. He is still fundamentally and magnificently unsound. "The Primrose Path" riots with authentic blossoms from the Nashochistic garden of verse. And some stuff, of course, that should go right on down that path to the appointed bonfire. For in the past year the Old Master has not been nodding. He has, if anything, been staying up too late, writing, writing, writing to fill cavities in the pages of beautiful letters. He reminds one of the space-writer who took up cartooning and wouldn't turn anything in but drawings of giraffes. You have to prowl around a while among these Milton-length pieces to find what you're looking for. But you find it. The Old M. never really lets you down….

Dedicated, improperly, to the high cause of bringing the limerick back into the drawing room, Mr. Nash offers a new cycle, unostentatiously...