THELLO is a play which every one might read and study with profit. We have in it several phases of human character developed with the skill of a master-the mean and cowardly villain; the man, naturally true and noble, led astray by the fierceness of passion; the trusting wife-all strengthened and set off by the genius of a mighty mind. To say that they are delineated according to the strictly natural, would be to speak incorrectly; for though Shakespeare is called the poet of nature, his characters are, in fact, highly ideal. There is scarcely a single one of them but rises above or sinks below the natural level. Men are pleased with the ideal. The natural is too prosy, too commonplace, to obtain the first place in public favor; and, of late years especially, if we wish to gain the public ear, we must descend into the realms of dark Pluto and drag up the vilest of the vile that kennel there, or else bring down from heaven some blood and thunder giantsome Jove whose puissant nod may shake the world. But if