Capital letter P - initial taken from a handsome manuscript in the British Museum, MS Sloane, No 2435, written early in the fourteenth century, or perhaps at the end of the thirteenth. In the original it begins the chapter of an old medical book which treats on the diet and dress proper to each of the four seasons of the year. The four compartments of the letter represent the manner of dressing in each season. The first compartment shows the costume proper for spring, where a light robe is thrown over the tunic, of such make and materials as to be neither too hot nor too cold, according to the prescription of the writer. In the second compartment, or summer, the outer robe is thrown off, and the tunic alone is left: the substances which the author recommends for this season are of a lighter kind. In autumn the same dress is recommended as in spring, but th eouter garment is here left loose and open, and the cloth is recommended to be a little colder. The figure in the fourth compartment, closely muffled up, represents the winter dress.