Page:Grierson Herbert - First Half of the Seventeenth Century.djvu/115

Rh The result was the stately and scholarly Sejanus His Fall, produced at the Globe in 1603, and published in 1605. The essentials of tragedy Jonson, in accordance with neo-classic tradition, finds in "truth of argument, dignity of person, gravity and height of elocution, fulness and frequency of sentence." In structure he made no attempt, as Milton did later, to reproduce the Greek model. "Nor is it needful, or almost possible, in these our days, and to such auditors as commonly things are presented, to observe the old state and splendour of dramatic poems with preservation of any popular delight." He follows the line indicated in The Poetaster, and puts a chapter of history into dramatic form. Jonson scorned to

"Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars,             And in the tiring-house, bring wounds to scars,"

but there is no essential difference between the structure of Sejanus and that of an ordinary "History." The plot is quite as wanting in unity as defined by Aristotle, quite as episodic. It relates the history of the reign of Tiberius from just before the murder of Drusus to the death of Sejanus. For every incident, for every character, for every trait of manners, the poet's authority is given. The spirit of Tacitus and Juvenal breathes from its stately scenes. Perhaps the highest compliment which can be paid to Sejanus is, that one can turn from the Annals to the play and feel the same emotions. The Poetaster and Sejanus are the first works which endeavour to reconstruct the