Lusus serius, or, Serious passe-time a philosophicall discourse concerning the superiority of creatures under man / written by Michael Mayerus ...

To the Honourable, CARY DILLON Esq. Son to ROBERT, late Earle of Roscommon.

SIR,

I Have neither by the Nobility of your Birth, your great and generous servi∣ces in Jreland under Im∣mortall Jones (that admi∣rable Prodigy and proofe of English valour) but by ••hat greatnesse and good∣nesse

of Nature which shines in your Conversa∣tion, been charmed into this Addresse; And I pro∣fesse also to have eve•• since my first knowledge of you, to have plac'd you so much in my e∣steeme, that I now repen•• the boldnesse of so small an offer; and the rather▪ looking on you as one that were pleased to take me into your friendship before I could imagine you had reason to doe it;

and that I found in you all those Morall vertues which the Schools so un∣necessarily dispute about, I thought I could not put this little Forraigner into better hands than yours, and teach it to tell Poste∣rity (for that is the Age of Books) that you have in∣finitely obliged a person that adores nothing more than those Heroical Ver∣tues which are constella∣ted in your Soul.

The Designe of the

Discourse (which I have libell'd from a learned pen) shall not be told you, saving in the generall, that it is Philosophicall and vertuous; And as in Ro∣mances and Jnterludes, the chief art and vertue is to conceale the Plot: So in hopes to betray you to a full perusall, I shall suffer the Scene to open, and the Actors to enter, & there∣fore in an humorous de∣sire of entertaining you, will leave you in the em∣brace

of your fair and no∣ble Lady, who may justly claime from me the same inclinations and devoir, as being both hers and

(SIR)

Your most Affectionate and most humble servant, J. de la Salle.