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lady soon after quitted the room, when his displeasure, which her presence had kept him from expressing broke forth; he dashed the book, with a degree of fury which astonished the gentleman who was present, against the wall of the room, declaring that the man who wrote the book, ought to be punished for deceiving people, and putting bad thoughts into their heads; and as for the book itself, that he should burn it wherever he might happen to meet with it. He was soon convinced of the improperty of his warmth, but he continued to regard the book, and its author, as highly blameable,
He was so concerned for the credit of his country, and so fearful of the consequence of drawing contempt upon it, that, except with particular persons, he was averse from giving very minute accounts of the state of African manners, arts, cultivation, or society. On the same account he studiously avoided strong marks of wonder at anything he saw in England, lest an inference should be drawn from it to the disadvantage of Africa. When he chose however to be unreserved in talking about his country, he was never known to violate truth in the accounts he gave.
Among the difficulties which his new view of things laid upon him, one respected his wives. He had two while in Africa, but he clearly saw the New Testament allowed only one: his difficulty was, to know which of them it was right for him to keep. He thought at first it would be him to keep her whom he had first married; but then considered that she had borne him no child, and that the second (who was besides the wife of his affections) had brought him a son; this last cir-
