Or stair, or courts; but stand'st an ancient pile,
And these grudg'd at, art reverenced the while.
Thou joy'st in better marks, of soil, of air,
Of wood, of water; therein thou art fair.

Thou hast thy walks for health, as well as sport:
Thy mount, to which thy Dryads do resort,
Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made,
Beneath the broad beech, and the chestnut shade;
That taller tree, which of a nut was set,

At his great birth, where all the Muses met."

of the Medway; it was the ancient seat of sir Stephen Pencestre, warden of the Cinque Ports, and Constable of Dover Castle, in the reign of Henry III., and was granted by Edward VI. to sir William Sidney and his heirs :-having been forfeited to the crown by the rebellion of sir R. Fane, its last proprietor.

2 Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show

Of touch or marble.] The common kind of black marble frequently made use of in funeral monuments, was then called by this name; so Weaver, giving the account of a tomb at Hampstead:

"Under a fair monument of marble and touch," &c. From its solidity and firmness it was used also as the test of gold: in this sense it occurs in Shakspeare:

"Ah! Buckingham, now do I ply the touch." Richard III. Act iv. sc. 2.

And from this use of it, the name itself was taken. It seems to be the same with that anciently called basalt. WHAL.

3 At his great birth, where all the Muses met,] i. e. sir Philip Sidney's, who was born at Penshurst in Kent. WHAL.

Sir Philip Sidney was born 29th November, 1554. "That taller tree," produced from an acorn, planted on his birth-day, and which has been the theme of many poets, is no longer standing. It is said to have been felled by mistake in 1768; a wretched apology, if true, and, in a case of such notoriety, scarcely possible. Waller, in one of his poems, written at Penshurst, where he amused himself with falling in love, has an allusion to this oak:

"Go, boy, and carve this passion on the bark

Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred mark
Of noble Sidney's birth," &c.

On which the commentator on his poems observes that though no tradition of the circumstance remained in the family, yet the obser

There, in the writhed bark, are cut the names
Of many a sylvan, taken with his flames;
And thence the ruddy satyrs oft provoke
The lighter fauns, to reach thy lady's oak.1

Thy copse, too, named of Gamage, thou hast there,"
That never fails to serve thee season'd deer,
When thou wouldst feast, or exercise thy friends.
The lower land, that to the river bends,
Thy sheep, thy bullocks, kine, and calves do feed;
The middle grounds thy mares and horses breed.
Each bank doth yield thee conies; and the tops
Fertile of wood, Ashore and Sydneys copp's,
To crown thy open table, doth provide
The purpled pheasant, with the speckled side :
The painted partridge lies in ev'ry field,
And for thy mess is willing to be kill'd.

vation of Cicero on the Marian oak might not unaptly be applied to it. "Manet vero et semper manebit. Sata est enim ingenio: Nullius autem agricola cultu stirps tam diuturna quam poetæ versu seminari potest." De leg. lib. i.

About a century after the date of Waller's verses, this oak was still standing, and the ingenious Mr. F. Coventry wrote the following lines under its shade:

"Stranger kneel here! to age due homage pay
When great Eliza held Britannia's sway

My growth began,-the same illustrious morn,
Joy to the hour! saw gallant Sidney born.
He perish'd early; I just stay behind

An hundred years; and lo! my clefted rind,
My wither'd boughs foretell destruction nigh;
We all are mortal; oaks and heroes die."

thy lady's oak.] There is an old tradition that a lady Leicester (the wife undoubtedly of sir Robert Sidney) was taken in travail under an oak in Penshurst park, which was afterwards called my Lady's oak.

Thy copse, too, named of Gamage.] "This coppice is now called lady Gamage's bower; it being said that Barbara Gamage, countess of Leicester, used to take great delight in feeding the deer therein from her own hands." Dug. Baron. This lady was daughter and heiress of John Gamage of Coytie, in Glamorganshire, and the first wife of sir Robert.

And if the high-swoln Medway fail thy dish,
Thou hast thy ponds, that pay thee tribute fish,
Fat aged carps that run into thy net,

And pikes, now weary their own kind to eat,
As loth the second draught or cast to stay,
Officiously at first themselves betray.

Bright eels that emulate them, and leap on land,
Before the fisher, or into his hand.

Then hath thy orchard fruit, thy garden flowers,
Fresh as the air, and new as are the hours.
The early cherry, with the later plum,

Fig, grape, and quince, each in his time doth come:
The blushing apricot, and woolly peach

Hang on thy walls, that every child may reach.
And though thy walls be of the country stone,
They're rear'd with no man's ruin, no man's groan;
There's none, that dwell about them, wish them down;
But all come in, the farmer and the clown;
And no one empty-handed, to salute

Thy lord and lady, though they have no suit.
Some bring a capon, some a rural cake,

Some nuts, some apples; some that think they make
The better cheeses, bring them; or else send
By their ripe daughters, whom they would commend
This way to husbands; and whose baskets bear
An emblem of themselves in plum, or pear.
But what can this (more than express their love)
Add to thy free provisions, far above

The need of such? whose liberal board doth flow,
With all that hospitality doth know!

Where comes no guest, but is allow'd to eat,
Without his fear, and of thy lord's own meat:

6 Where comes no guest, but is allow'd to eat,

Without his fear, and of thy lord's own meat, &c.] This, and what follows, may appear a strange topic for praise to those who are unacquainted with the practice of those times. But, in fact, the liberal mode of hospitality here recorded, was almost peculiar

Where the same beer and bread, and self-same wine, That is his lordship's, shall be also mine.

And I not fain to sit (as some this day,

At great men's tables) and

away.

yet dine
Here no man tells my cups; nor standing by,
A waiter, doth my gluttony envỳ:

But gives me what I call, and lets me eat,
He knows, below, he shall find plenty of meat;
Thy tables hoard not up for the next day,
Nor, when I take my lodging, need I pray
For fire, or lights, or livery; all is there;
As if thou then wert mine, or I reign'd here:
There's nothing I can wish, for which I stay.
That found king James, when hunting late, this way,
With his brave son, the prince; they saw thy fires
Shine bright on every hearth, as the desires
Of thy Penates had been set on flame,
To entertain them; or the country came,
With all their zeal, to warm their welcome here.
What (great, I will not say, but) sudden chear

to this noble person. The great, indeed, dined at long tables (they had no other in their vast halls) and permitted many guests to sit down with them; but the gradations of rank and fortune were rigidly maintained, and the dishes grew visibly coarser as they receded from the head of the table. No reader of our old poets can be ignorant of the phrase, below the salt; but it may not be generally known that in some countries the custom yet prevails. It is the natural consequence of feudal manners; and the scene between the patron and the client which excited the caustic indignation of Juvenal, is daily renewed in many parts of Russia, and in the whole of Poland. In England the system was breaking up when Jonson wrote, and he notices it with his usual good sense. It is to the honour of Penshurst that the observation was made there.

Herrick, who abounds in imitations of Jonson, whom he loved and admired, has copied many passages of this and the following poem, in his Panegyrick to sir L. Pemberton. Here is one of them: "No, no, thy bread, thy wine, thy jocund beere Is not reserv'd for Trebius here,

But all, who at thy table seated are,

Find equal freedom, equal fare," &c.

Didst thou then make 'em! and what praise was heap'd
On thy good lady, then! who therein reap'd
The just reward of her high huswifry;

To have her linen, plate, and all things nigh,
When she was far; and not a room, but drest,
As if it had expected such a guest!

These, Penshurst, are thy praise, and yet not all.
Thy lady's noble, fruitful, chaste withal.

His children thy great lord may call his own;"
A fortune, in this age, but rarely known.
They are, and have been taught religion; thence
Their gentler spirits have suck'd innocence.
Each morn, and even, they are taught to pray,
With the whole household, and may, every day,
Read in their virtuous parents' noble parts,
The mysteries of manners, arms, and arts.
Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee
With other edifices, when they see

Those proud ambitious heaps, and nothing else,
May say, their lords have built, but thy lord dwells.

III.

TO SIR ROBERT WROTH.

OW blest art thou, canst love the country,
Wroth,

Whether by choice, or fate, or both!

And though so near the city, and the court, Art ta'en with neither's vice nor sport:

Thy great lord, &c.] Robert Sidney, the second son of sir Henry Sidney, and brother of sir Philip, was knighted for his gallant behaviour at the battle of Zutphen, 1586; advanced to the dignity of baron Sidney of Penshurst by James, created viscount Lisle in 1605, and finally promoted to the earldom of Leicester in 1618. He is not flattered in these pleasing lines; for his character was truly excellent.

8 And though so near the city and the court.] The seat of sir