I hope you feel better, Jim, after that little rant! :-) Abby's post was eight years ago, and possibly the spelling error came from Amazon in the first plaice [sic].

I couldn't access the facsimile you linked to, probably due to copyright issues &c from the UK, but I did find another copy in the Internet Archive Il Pesceballo, and it is a delightful piece of academic fun.

According to the introduction the original 'One Fishball' ballad is ascribed to Professor Lane, Professor of Latin at Harvard, and during the Civil War it was worked over by Professor Child into a mock Italian operetta, with an English version by Professor Lowell, and was performed at Cambridge for the benefit of a fund for the [Union] soldiers.

Here is Child's rendition of the crux of the ballad:-

IL CAMERIERE (con furia) Con un pesceballo, voi pan' domandate?
Voi matto siete, per certo, scusate!
Siffatta richiesta dà prova funesta
Di debole testa, d'un cieco furore!
E sintomo certo siffatta richiesta
Di menta distratta, d'un cieco furor!

Then here is the English version by James Russell Lowell;

WAITER (with fury) With one single fish-ball, is't bread ye are after?
So wild a presumption provokes me to laughter!
So mad a suggestion proves, out of all question,
Howe'er you the test shun, you're mad as a hornet!
I trample it, scorn it, so mad a suggestion!
It fills me with fury, it dumbs me with rage!

Matthew