"With regard to E., you will perceive a most irregular, extravagant account, without proper documents to support it. He demanded an increase of salary, which made me suspect him; he supported an outrageous extravagance of expenditure, and did not like the dismission of the cook; he never complained of him--as in duty bound--at the time of his robberies. I can only say, that the house expense is now under _one half_ of what it then was, as he himself admits. He charged for a comb _eighteen_ francs,--the real price was _eight_. He charged a passage from Fusina for a person named Iambelli, who paid it _herself_, as she will prove if necessary. He fancies, or asserts himself, the victim of a domestic complot against him;--accounts are accounts--prices are prices;--let him make out a fair detail. _I_ am not prejudiced against him--on the contrary, I supported him against the complaints of his wife, and of his former master, at a time when I could have crushed him like an earwig; and if he is a scoundrel, he is the greatest of scoundrels, an ungrateful one. The truth is, probably, that he thought I was leaving Venice, and determined to make the most of it. At present he keeps bringing in _account after account_, though he had always money in hand--as I believe you know my system was never to allow longer than a week's bills to run. Pray read him this letter--I desire nothing to be concealed against which he may defend himself. "Pray how is your little boy? and how are you?--I shall be up in Venice very soon, and we will be bilious together. I hate the place and all that it inherits. "Yours," &c. [Footnote 58: "This language" (says Mr. Hoppner, in some remarks upon the above letter) "is strong, but it was the language of prejudice; and he was rather apt thus to express the feelings of the moment, without troubling himself to consider how soon he might be induced to change them. He was at this time so sensitive on the subject of Madame * *, that, merely because some persons had disapproved of her conduct, he declaimed in the above manner against the whole nation. I never" (continues Mr. Hoppner) "was partial to Venice; but disliked it almost from the first month of my residence there. Yet I experienced more kindness in that place than I ever met with in any country, and witnessed acts of generosity and disinterestedness such as rarely are met with elsewhere."] * * * * * LETTER 343. TO MR. HOPPNER. "October 28. 1819.