'The Dial' for the October quarter is a very excellent and lifeful number of that greatly-improved journal. Among the articles which most attracted our attention and admiration, are the 'Youth of the Poet and Painter,' 'A Winter Walk,' an essay on 'The Comic,' and the 'Letter' of the Editor to his correspondents. The first of these papers is characterized by several thrusts of a trenchant satire. We should rather infer, from the recorded 'experiences' of the writer, that when he first entered college, his bump of reverence for collegiate institutions and men of learning could hardly have been developed. Hear him, how he saith:

'I saw that in reciting our lessons to the conceited tutors, who think College is the Universe, and the President Jupiter, they had the impudence to give us marks for what we did, as if we, paying them for so much aid in our lessons, were therefore to be rewarded by them with a couple of pencil scratches. I found we were treated, not only as machines, but to be set up or down, at the discretion of these tutors, who had merely to scratch down a mark, and thus decide our fates. This foolery I felt I could not agree to.' 'I found here no scholars whatever. Some young men deficient in grace, were wearing out the elbows of their coats, in getting by heart some set lessons of some little text-books, and striving which should commit them the most perfectly to memory. This perfection lay in the point of a tutor's pencil, and was at last decided on by the votes of a band of professors, who loved wine and puddings better than literature or art, and whose chief merit lay in keeping their feet dry.'

Perhaps 'these be truths.' Certain it is, that the annexed passage partakes of the veritable. It is a 'picture in little' of the morning routine of a briefless lawyer; and the sitter has many a counterpart in this metropolis of Gotham:

'In the morning, you enter your office at half-past eight, read the paper till nine, and then, if you feel able, walk as far as the court-house. There you are provided with a seat by the sheriff, and cold water by the deputy-sheriff. You next stare at the Court, consisting of one or more judges, twelve jurymen, a criminal or civil case, four baize tables, and a lot of attorneys. You next begin to make motions, which consists in getting a case put off, or put on, as you happen to feel, and run your eye over the docket, which is kept at the clerk's table, in a ledger, for the accommodation of the county, and the clerk's family. If it is your case which comes on, you open your eyes wide, talk a great deal about nothing, and dine with the bar. Occasionally you will feel sleepy after dinner, but awake yourself by smoking a cigar, or driving into the country.'

Here is an extract which will be appreciated for its graceful diction, the love and observation of nature which it displays, and the pensive train of thought which its tone engenders:

'To-day has been pure golden sun-shine since morning; and how the day-god played with the trunks of the trees, as if the forest were one great harp! In the morning, as I sat among golden-rods, under the shade of a pine, where on every side these sunny flowers grew, it seemed as if the sunlight had become so thickly knotted and intertwined with the roots and stems of the plants and grasses, that it could not escape, but must remain and shine forever; yet the pine tree's shadow, at sunset and before, fell long across the place, and the gay light had fled, like the few bright days of life, which fly so rapid by. The old tell us we are young, and can know nothing of life; to me it seems I have lived centuries, out of which I can reckon on my fingers the days of pleasure, when my heart beat high. I fancy there is a race of men born to know only the loss of life by its joys; to live by single days, and to pass their time for the most part in shadowy vistas, where there is neither darkness nor light, but perpetual mist. I am one of these; and though I love nature; the river, the forest, the clouds, she is only a phantom, like myself, and passes slowly, an unexplained mystery, like my own consciousness, which shows through a want of perfect knowledge. I see myself, only as what I do not know, and others, as some reflection of this ignorance, an iceberg among other icebergs, slowly drifting from the frozen pole of birth to the frozen pole of death, through a sunny sea.'

Well pleased should we have been to accompany our observant and thoughtful essayist, when he fetched his 'Winter Walk.' Mark his delicate appreciation of the little accessories of the season. We thank him for awakening vivid glimpses of the past, that go strait to the fresh scenes of boyhood:

'There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill. It finally melts the great snow, and in January or July is only buried under a thicker or thinner covering. In the coldest day it flows somewhere, and the snow melts around every tree. This field of winter rye, which sprouted late in the fall, and now speedily dissolves the snow, is where the fire is very thinly covered. We feel warmed by it. In the winter, warmth stands for all virtue, and we resort in thought to a trickling rill, with its bare stones shining in the sun, and to warm springs in the woods, with as much eagerness as rabbits and robins. The steam which rises from swamps and pools, is as dear and domestic as that of our own kettle. What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a winter's day, when the meadow mice come out by the wall-sides, and the chicadee lisps in the defiles of the wood? The warmth comes directly from the sun, and is not radiated from the earth, as in summer; and when we feel his beams on our back as we are treading some snowy dell, we are grateful as for a special kindness, and bless the sun which has followed us into that by-place. This subterranean fire has its altar in each man's breast, for in the coldest day, and on the bleakest hill, the traveller cherishes a warmer fire within the folds of his cloak than is kindled on any hearth. A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart.' * * * 'In winter we lead a more inward life. Our hearts are warm and merry, like cottages under drifts, whose windows and doors are half concealed, but from whose chimneys the smoke cheerfully ascends. The imprisoning drifts increase the sense of comfort which the house affords, and in the coldest days we are content to sit over the hearth and see the sky through the chimney top, enjoying the quiet and serene life that may be had in a warm corner by the chimney side, or feeling our pulse by listening to the low of cattle in the street, or the sound of the flail in distant barns all the long afternoon. No doubt a skilful physician could determine our health by observing how these simple and natural sounds affected us.'

We commend the following to those who seem to think that a thorough love of the comic or the burlesque argues an ill-regulated mind or a perverted taste. That there are such persons, the reader who has done us the honor to peruse our late confabulations with correspondents, will not need to be informed:

'A perception of the comic seems to be a balance-wheel in our metaphysical structure. It appears to be an essential element in a fine character. Wherever the intellect is constructive, it will be found. We feel the absence of it as a defect in the noblest and most oracular soul. It insulates the man, cuts down all bridges between him and other men. The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, is a pledge of sanity, and is a protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities into which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A man alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow-men can do little for him.'