FOR some time past Ovid has been a neglected poet. The opinion has grown up that he is remarkable for two things only: an amazing command of the technique of versification, and a pleasant facility in the art of story-telling. It is useless, so we gather, to look in his works for any genuine feeling, for poetry that springs from the heart; his merits, such as they are, appear only on the surface, rhetorical virtues with nothing substantial beneath them. However, there are encouraging signs that Ovid may return to favour. There appeared, for instance, in 1934 an excellent article by T. F. Higham entitled ‘Ovid: Some Aspects of his Character and Aims’, in which the author attacked the prevalent view because it simply does not make sense of Ovid as a man. Recently, too, H. Frankel published a sympathetic book on the poet which should go far to interest the general public in his work. In a review of this book L. P. Wilkinson wrote of the need for ‘a demonstration with abundant quotation in Latin of what it is that can make Ovid at his best enjoyable reading for us’. The present article is, in a small way, an attempt to provide such a demonstration. It is too much, of course, to hope for a demonstration in the logical sense, for conclusive proof; but what one can attempt is to demonstrate in the first meaning of the word, to point to features that seem to be significant, in the hope that others may'be induced to read with awakened interest.