A horizontal row of decorative floral fleurons serves as a header ornament.

TO THE STUDENTS

OF THE LIGHT OF NATURE, GREETINGS. original: "S." abbreviating "Salutem," a standard Latin greeting.

A large decorative woodcut initial 'P' containing floral and leaf motifs.

Post-retirement, having recently withdrawn myself by my own choice from public cares and the stormy sandbanks original: "syrtibus"; a reference to the Syrtes, dangerous quicksands off the coast of North Africa, used here as a metaphor for the perils of political life. of the Court into the peaceful shallows of domestic tranquility, (O students of the Secrets of Nature original: "Arcanorum Naturae") that saying of the poet The Roman poet Ovid, from his work Amores (3.11.3). frequently occurred to my exulting mind:

Truly now I have claimed myself and fled my chains; original: "Scilicet asserui iam me fugique cathenas"

I felt that old contemplation of the things of Nature returning, which had once grown with me from my early youth; and I willingly offered myself to it as it opportunely arrived, so that the splendor of Fortune Success, wealth, or status in the public eye. which I had voluntarily renounced might be compensated by a certain present benefit of its own light, Na- The word is cut off at the end of the page; it likely continues as "Natura" (Nature) on the following leaf.