F all cross breeds of human sinners,
The crabbedest are those who dress our dinners;
Whether the ardent fires at which they roast
And broil and bake themselves like Smithfield martyrs,
Are apt to make them crusty, like a toast,
Or drams, encouraged by so hot a post;
However, cooks are generally Tartars;
And altogether might be safely cluster’d
In scientific catalogues
Under two names, like Dinmont’s dogs,
Pepper and Mustard.
The case thus being very common,
It followed, quite of course, when Mr. Jervis
Engaged a clever culinary woman,
He took a mere Xantippe in his service—
In fact—her metal not to burnish,
As vile a shrew as Shrewsbury could furnish—
One who in temper, language, manners, looks,
In every respect
Might just have come direct
From him, who is supposed to send us cooks.
The very day she came into her place
She slapp’d the scullion’s face;
The next, the housemaid being rather pert,
Snatching the broom, she “treated her like dirt”—
The third, a quarrel with the groom she hit on—
Cyrus, the page, had half-a-dozen knocks;
And John, the coachman, got a box
He couldn’t sit on.
Meanwhile, her strength to rally,
Brandy, and rum, and shrub she drank by stealth,
Besides the Cream of some mysterious Valley
That may, or may not, be the Vale of Health:
At least while credit lasted, or her wealth—
For finding that her blows came only thicker,
Invectives and foul names but flew the quicker,
The more she drank, the more inclined to bicker,
The other servants one and all,
Took Bible oaths whatever might befal,
Neither to lend her cash, nor fetch her liquor!
This caused, of course, a dreadful schism,
And what was worse, in spite of all endeavour,
After a fortnight of Tea-totalism,
The Plague broke out more virulent than ever!
The life she led her fellows down the stairs!
The life she led her betters in the parlour!
No parrot ever gave herself such airs,
No pug-dog cynical was such a snarler!
At woman, man, and child, she flew and snapp’d,
No rattlesnake on earth so fierce and rancorous—
No household cat that ever lapp’d
To swear and spit was half so apt—
No bear, sore-headed, could be more cantankerous—
No fretful porcupine more sharp and crabbed—
No wolverine
More full of spleen—
In short, the woman was completely rabid!
The least offence of look or phrase,
The slightest verbal joke, the merest frolic,
Like a snap-dragon set her in a blaze,
Her spirit was so alcoholic!
And woe to him who felt her tongue!
It burnt like caustic—like a nettle stung,
Her speech was scalding—scorching—vitriolic!
And larded, not with bacon fat,
Or anything so mild as that,
But curses so intensely diabolic,
So broiling hot, that he, at whom she levell’d,
Felt in his very gizzard he was devill’d!
Often and often Mr. Jervis
Long’d, and yet feared, to turn her from his service;
For why? Of all his philosophic loads
Of reptiles loathsome, spiteful, and pernicious,
Stuff’d Lizards, bottled Snakes, and pickled Toads,
Potted Tarantulas, and Asps malicious,
And Scorpions cured by scientific modes,
He had not any creature half so vicious!
At last one morning
The coachman had already given warning,
And little Cyrus
Was gravely thinking of a new cockade,
For open War’s rough sanguinary trade,
Or any other service, quite desirous,
Instead of quarrelling with such a jade—
When accident explain’d the coil she made,
And whence her Temper had derived the virus!
Struck with the fever, called the scarlet,
The Termagant was lying sick in bed—
And little Cyrus, that precocious varlet,
Was just declaring her “as good as dead,”
When down the attic stairs the housemaid, Charlotte,
Came running from the chamber overhead,
Like one demented;
Flapping her hands, and casting up her eyes,
And giving gasps of horror and surprise,
Which thus she vented—
“O Lord! I wonder that she didn’t bite us!
Or sting us like a Tantalizer,[1]
(The note will make the reader wiser,)
And set us all a dancing like St. Witus!
“Temper! No wonder that the creature had
A temper so uncommon bad!
She’s just confessed to Doctor Griper
That being out of Rum, and like denials,
Which always was prodigious trials,—
Because she couldn’t pay the piper,
She went one day, she did, to Master’s wials,
And drunk the spirit as preserved the Wiper!”