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.