The performance of the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles in the Theatre of Harvard University in May, 1881, was a memorable event in our quiet academic life. After months of preparation and anxious thought, it took us all by surprise. We had hoped to have a dignified academic performance, which should give classical scholars a vivid impression of one of those tragedies “of stateliest argument,” whose full power is beyond the reach of the mere student, which might revive pleasant recollections in some whose Greek was chiefly a memory of the past, and which might perhaps also interest a few others, who would regard an ancient tragedy, like any other ancient curiosity, with kind and charitable consideration. None were more surprised at the almost universal enthusiasm which the actual performance excited — none, indeed, were more surprised at the effect of the performance upon themselves — than those of us who should have understood “best the power and grandeur of a tragedy of Sophocles. This was due in no small measure to the scrupulous fidelity with which every one who took part in the performance devoted his best strength to its success; but it was due also, and more than to all else, to the native power of Attic tragedy, which suddenly revealed itself, even to those who were ignorant of its form and its language alike, as a veritable “possession for all time.”