I do not wish to find him a rascal, if it can be avoided, and would rather think him guilty of carelessness than cheating.  The case is this—­can I, or not, give him a character for honesty?—­It is not my intention to continue him in my service.”

[Footnote 57:  Mr. Hoppner, before his departure from Venice for Switzerland, had, with all the zeal of a true friend, written a letter to Lord Byron, entreating him “to leave Ravenna while yet he had a whole skin, and urging him not to risk the safety of a person he appeared so sincerely attached to—­as well as his own—­for the gratification of a momentary passion, which could only be a source of regret to both parties.”  In the same letter Mr. Hoppner informed him of some reports he had heard lately at Venice, which, though possibly, he said, unfounded, had much increased his anxiety respecting the consequences of the connection formed by him.]

* * * * *

LETTER 342.  TO MR. HOPPNER.

     “October 25. 1819.

“You need not have made any excuses about the letter:  I never said but that you might, could, should, or would have reason.  I merely described my own state of inaptitude to listen to it at that time, and in those circumstances.  Besides, you did not speak from your own authority—­but from what you said you had heard.  Now my blood boils to hear an Italian speaking ill of another Italian, because, though they lie in particular, they speak truth in general by speaking ill at all;—­and although they know that they are trying and wishing to lie, they do not succeed, merely because they can say nothing so bad of each other, that it may not, and must not be true, from the atrocity of their long debased national character.[58]

“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