Shut your Mouth. By George Catlin. (Triibner.)—Mr. Catlin does not
give to this maxim a Pythagorean sense, as Mr. Carlyle recommends "golden silence ;" nor dees he use it to enforce the duty of abstinence in the matter of eating and drinking. Ho takes it literally. We are to keep our mouths shut, whether awake or asleep, except for the necessary purposes of speaking or eating; in fact, we are not to breathe through them. Mankind has been under a mistake for some thousands, or, it may be, hundreds of thousands of years. And how natural a mistake to fall into ! Who would not think that he was to breathe through his mouth? And yet, Mr. Catlin tells us, the savages seem to know better. If we will but follow their example, we are promised immunity, or at least a good chance of immunity, from many evils which now afflict our race,—consumption, idiotcy, deformity, among them. Mr. Catlin goes so far as to declare his belief that were cholera to break out in any city, it would die out for want of material were all the people who open their mouths to go away. We have no doubt that there is something in what he says, that the nose does act as a respirator, and arrests impurities which might pass through the mouth with great damage to the lunge. We heartily wish indeed that the gospel which ho preaches might be proved to be true, for it is not a heavy burden. Yet wo are only too doubtful about it. After all, what do we learn from the fact of the nation from which Mr. Catlin draws his examples. The North American Indians have nearly perished, though they did shut their mouths so close. Some of Mr. Catlitt's reminiscences of these tribes have a pathetic interest which hardly tolls in favour of his thesis. His drawings, we ought not to forget to say, are very spirited and humorous.
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