The John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera contains three examples of the early printed board game The Royal Pastime of Cupid, Or Entertaining Game of the Snake. While this paper will discuss all three examples, which are dated to either the late eighteenth or the early nineteenth century, one of its main concerns will be to present evidence to provide a publication date for one particular example, the print published by William Dicey, which currently lacks a firm publication date in the John Johnson catalogue. The Bodleian's bibliographic record attributes a broad publication date of 1700–1750, although the Dicey imprint variant used makes it possible to establish a more precise publication date, c. 1736–1740.

The article also identifies the three "types" of iconography used in the final square of Cupid games published in Britain. These are: Cupid honing his arrow in a formal garden; Cupid alone with his bow; and a peasant couple dancing in a hortus conclusus apparently serenaded by Cupid playing on a fiddle, but who is, in fact, making 'rough music'.

The first type can be seen in print published by Laurie & Whittle in 1794 and re-issued R. H. Laurie c. 1850, as well as in a print published in Glasgow by James Lumsden & Son, c. 1810–1830. The second type can be seen in prints issued by the Bowles family, viz. a Carington Bowles edition of c. 1756 and a Bowles & Carver print of c. 1763–1780. The third type, used by Dicey c. 1736–1740, also occurs in an earlier edition published by John Garrett, c. 1690–1700.

The article concludes with the observation that the earliest type, the peasant dance motif, appears to be derived from a print published in Amsterdam by Claes Jansz. Visscher, c. 1625.