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!