A London bookseller in his catalogue published in 1834, probably speaking on Mr. Ottley’s hint that the cuts in the Ovid of 1509 might have appeared in an earlier edition, thus describes Bonsignore’s Ovid, a work in which the wood-cuts are of a very inferior description, and of which a specimen is given in a preceding page: “Ovidii Metamorphoseos Vulgare, con le Allegorie, [Venezia, 1497,] with numerous beautiful wood-cuts, apparently by the artist who executed the Poliphilo, printed by Aldus in 1499.” The wood-cuts in the Ovid of 1497 are as inferior to those in Poliphilo as the commonest cuts in children’s school-books are inferior to the beautiful wood-cuts in Rogers’s Pleasures of Memory, printed in 1812, which were designed by Stothard and engraved by Clennell. It is but fair to add, that the cuts used in the Ovid of 1497, printed by the brothers De Lignano, cannot be the same as those in the Ovid of 1509 referred to by Mr. Ottley; for though the subjects may be nearly the same, the cuts in the latter edition are larger than those in the former, and have besides an engraver’s mark which is not to be seen in any of the cuts in the edition of 1497. The five following cuts are fac-similes traced line for line from the originals in Poliphilo. In the first, Mercury is seen interfering to save Cupid from the anger of Venus, who has been punishing him and plucking the feathers from his wings. The cause of her anger is explained by the figure of Mars behind the net in which he and Venus had been inclosed by Vulcan. Love had been the cause of his mother’s misfortune. [Illustration] In the following cut Cupid is represented as brought by Mercury before Jove, who in the text, “in Athica lingua,” addresses the God of Love, as “ΣΥΜΟΙΓΛΥΚΥΣ ΚΑΙ ΠΙΚΡΟΣ”--“at once sweet and bitter.” In the inscription in the cut, “ΑΛΛΑ” is substituted for “ΚΑΙ.” [Illustration] In the next cut Cupid appears piercing the sky with a dart, and thus causing a shower of gold to fall. The figures represent persons of all conditions whom he has wounded, looking on with amazement. [Illustration] The three preceding cuts, in the original work, appear as compartments from left to right on one block. They are here given separate for the convenience of printing, as the page is not wide enough to allow of their being placed as in the original folio. [Illustration]