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.

"I have to thank you for your letter, and your compliment to Don
Juan. I said nothing to you about it, understanding that it is a
sore subject with the moral reader, and has been the cause of a
great row; but I am glad you like it. I will say nothing about the
shipwreck, except that I hope you think it is as nautical and
technical as verse could admit in the octave measure.

"The poem has _not sold well_, so Murray says--'but the best
judges, &c. say, &c.' so says that worthy man. I have never seen it
in print. The third Canto is in advance about one hundred stanzas;
but the failure of the two first has weakened my _estro_, and it
will neither be so good as the two former, nor completed, unless I
get a little more _riscaldato_ in its behalf. I understand the
outcry was beyond e