A decorative headpiece featuring two winged putti or cherubs flanking a central grotesque face. The figures are intertwined with scrolling foliage, floral motifs, and small animals (possibly rabbits or hares) at the base.

TO

The Right Honorable my very good Lord

the Earl of Southampton.

Ornamental drop cap 'S' with floral and vine patterns.Some seven years ago (Right Honorable), I was requested by several worthy gentlemen to write briefly a pithy discourse about the passions of the mind: because (as they said) they were things always in use, and seldom without abuse; they were daily, indeed and almost hourly felt, no less crafty than dangerous, much talked of, and as yet never well taught. Their demand seemed to me so reasonable, honest, profitable, and delightful, that I deemed it discourtesy and incivility not to condescend to satisfy their suit. A treatise hereupon I penned, but I know not how, in the inundation of my crosses, it suffered shipwreck with the rest of my writings; and at the time I supposed it had been lying rotting in the bottom of the sea, a favorable gale brought it ashore, where, being found (likely by some who liked it well), it was taken up, entertained, and dispersed abroad. When I beheld it, I wondered, and could not tell whether to rejoice to see my aborted infant revived, or fear whether it had been maimed and corrupted; for I suspected it had passed through some hands which might have caused me to speak in a language I never understood. At last I began perusing it,