Sejanus: His Fall | Page 7

"put down" his friend, Jonson. A wiser interpretation
finds the "purge" in "Satiromastix," which, though not written by
Shakespeare, was staged by his company, and therefore with his
approval and under his direction as one of the leaders of that company.
The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised as a
dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to him as a
dramatic satirist. But Jonson now turned his talents to new fields. Plays
on subjects derived from classical story and myth had held the stage
from the beginning of the drama, so that Shakespeare was making no
new departure when he wrote his "Julius Caesar" about 1600. Therefore
when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three years later and with
Shakespeare'scompany once more, he was only following in the elder
dramatist's footsteps. But Jonson's idea of a play on classical history, on
the one hand, and Shakespeare's and the elder popular dramatists, on
the other, were very different. Heywood some years before had put five
straggling plays on the stage in quick succession, all derived from
stories in Ovid and dramatised with little taste or discrimination.
Shakespeare had a finer conception of form, but even he was contented
to take all his ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and
dramatise his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and
a classical antiquarian. He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness, and
wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius, and
other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and his
atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the
margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine
dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of
the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our
drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient
Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his

Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the
former play to the reader, in which Jonson refers to a collaboration in
an earlier version, has led to the surmise that Shakespeare may have
been that "worthier pen." There is no evidence to determine the matter.
In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman and
Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled "Eastward
Hoe." In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his "Malcontent," in
terms of fervid admiration, to Jonson; so that the wounds of the war of
the theatres must have been long since healed. Between Jonson and
Chapman there was the kinship of similar scholarly ideals. The two
continued friends throughout life. "Eastward Hoe" achieved the
extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one
year. But this was not due entirely to the merits of the play. In its
earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be
derogatory to his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to
jail; but the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had
influence at court.
With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and
successful career as a writer of masques. He wrote more masques than
all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary variety
and poetic excellence. Jonson did not invent the masque; for such
premeditated devices to set and frame, so to speak, a court ball had
been known and practised in varying degrees of elaboration long before
his time. But Jonson gave dramatic value to the masque, especially in
his invention of the antimasque, a comedy or farcical element of relief,
entrusted to professional players or dancers. He enhanced, as well, the
beauty and dignity of those portions of the masque in which noble lords
and ladies took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and
artistic grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show. On the mechanical
and scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo
Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the
standard of stage representation in the England of his day. Jonson
continued active in the service of the court in the writing of masques
and other entertainments far into the reign of King Charles; but,
towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his life, and the two
testy old men appear to have become not only a constant irritation to
each other, but intolerable bores at court. In "Hymenaei," "The Masque

of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance," "Lovers made Men,"
"Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more will be found Jonson's
aptitude, his taste, his poetry and inventiveness in these by-forms of the
drama; while in "The Masque of Christmas," and "The Gipsies
Metamorphosed" especially, is discoverable that power ofbroad
comedy which, at court as well