New Haven Daily Herald

From Hood's Magazine and Comic Miscellany.

A Tale of Temper.

Of all cross breeds of human sinners,
The crabbedest are those who dress our dinners;
Whether the ardent fires at which they roast
And boil 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 clustered
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 to her place
She slapped 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, 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 only came 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 befall
Neither to lend her cash, nor fetch her liquor!

This caused, of course, a dreadful schism
And what was worse, in spite of all endeavor,
After a fortnight of Tee-totalism
The Plague broke out more virulent than ever!
The life she led the 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 snapped,
No rattlesnake on earth so fierce and rancorous—
No household cat that ever lapped
To swear and spit was 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 any thing so mild as that,
But curses so intensely diabolic,
So broiling hot, that he at whom she levelled,
Felt in his very gizzard he was devilled!

Often and often Mr. Jervis
Longed, and yet feared, to turn her from his service;
For why? Of all his philosophic loads
Of reptiles loathsome, spiteful and pernicious,
Stuffed 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 quarreling with such a jade,—
When accident explained 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 she thus vented—
"Oh Laws! I wonder that she didn't bite us!
Or sting us like a Tantalizer,*
(The note will make the reader wiser,)
And set us all a dancing like St. Vitus!
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 vials,
And drunk the spirits as preserved the Viper!"

* Tarantula.