PARTURIUNT MONTES.
Parturiunt montes—when Queens and Princesses lie in, nascitur ridiculus M218—much humbug may naturally be looked for.
Even in settled constitutional governments like our own, this maxim holds good. The humbug, it is true, like all other func- tions supposed by the theory of the constitution to be exercised by the Sovereign, is played off in her name by those about her. But it is dispensed with no sparing hand. The last few weeks bear ample testimony to this truth : witness the pompous announce- ment of relays of wet-nurses kept in readiness, as if some young Gargantua were expected, whose gigantic hunger were not to be appeased by one nurse of mortal mould ; witness Sir ROBERT Prizes coach-horses standing harnessed night and day, that not a moment may be lost when he is summoned to be present at her Majesty's accouchement—and of course Sir Roamer himself sleep- ing in full-dress, inasmuch as more time is required for the making of his toilet than of that of his "faithful steeds." Prime Ministers have no easy time of it when Queens are about to lie in : they are as ill at ease as the knights in Branxholm of old, who " drank the red wine through their helmets barred." But where a female ruler possesses personal power, or hopes to obtain it, then does the peculiar character of this interesting season display itself in full vigour. Whoever has noted the adventures of CHRISTINA of Spain, or her sister the Dutchess DE BERRI, may form some conception of it. With these illustrious Princesses the intensity of political action seems to increase with the progress of parturition. As the child quickened, the one stirred up an insur- rection in La Vendee ; and under the influence of the slightest possible access of puerperal fever, the other let off a conspiracy that might have been the cause of her daughter's death, with as much pleasurable excitement as a sow in the same interesting con- dition has been known to eat up her litter. The advocates of a Salle law might be allowed to lay some stress upon this circumstance, were not the lords of creation liable to periodical attacks of delirium quite as mischievous. MARK AN- Tway and HENRY the Eighth are enough to show that the amatory hallucinations of men render them for the moment quite as unfit to be trusted with political power as women in the straw. It is not "acme! insanivimus omnes " ; both sexes are liable to periodically- recurring fits of insanity. And hence the necessity for constitu- tional strait-waistcoats.
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