To Penshurst

The model for the country house poem is Ben Jonson's To Penshurst, published in 1616, which compliments Robert Sydney, 1st Earl of Leicester, younger brother of Sir Philip Sidney on his Penshurst Place. The poem has many allusions, to Epiphanius, Martial, and Horace, amongst others, and begins with the following lines referencing Horace's Ode 2:18: Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show Of touch or marble, nor canst boast a row Of polished pillars, or a roof of gold; Thou hast no lantern whereof tales are told, Or stair, or courts; but stand’st an ancient pile, And these grudged at, art reverenced the while.

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Ben Jonson

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