Minor Notes.
_Dean Swift on Herbert's Travels._--In a copy, now in my library, of
Herbert's _Travels in Africa, Asia, &c._, folio, 1634, there is a very
characteristic note in the autograph of Dean Swift, to whom the book
formerly belonged. Thinking that it may not be uninteresting to some of
the readers of "N. & Q.," I send a copy of it:
"If this book were stript of its impertinence, conceitedness, and
tedious digressions, it would be almost worth reading, and would
then be two-thirds smaller than it is.
"1720. J. SWIFT."
"The author published a new edition in his older days, with many
additions, upon the whole more insufferable than this. He lived
several years after the Restoration, and some friends of mine knew
him in Ireland. He seems to have been a coxcomb both ævi vitio et
sui."