Mr. Tate is, as critic, essentially a polemicist, an aggressive and sometimes truculent warrior who for more than twenty years has conducted a skillful defensive action. Believing that the best defense is an offense, he has given no quarter to any in whom he detects, under whatever disguise, allegiance to the Enemy—the reigning tyrant, Positivism. Though I do not come to praise Tate, I am not attempting to bury him, for the corpus of his criticism [displayed in On the Limits of Poetry, Selected Essays: 1928–1948] is still fresh and lively. But the appearance of this collection, together with many other omens, does seem to mark the end of a campaign. The cause that Mr. Tate champions has probably won as much territory as it is likely to obtain without a change of strategy; and it is time now for a consolidation of gains, a check of casualties...