In relation to the topographical poem "To Penshurst" (by Ben Jonson), discuss the underlying agenda.

The poem, the first in a genre of poems in praise of country houses, was written with two underlying agendas. The first was to compliment and flatter Jonson's patron, Robert Sidney, the earl of Leicester. To do this, Jonson extolls the harmonious beauty of this estate and the gracious generosity of the Sidney family.
Another underlying agenda, however, was to criticize other grand aristocratic families who lived more showy and immoral lives at a time when aristocratic wealth and power was growing under the Stuart dynasty. Jonson carries off this critique by praising the modesty of the Sidneys. For example, the poem opens by stating:

Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious showOf touch or marble nor canst boast a rowOf polished pillars, or a roof of gold

In other words, the less ostentatious Penshurst reflects solid values, not a desire to flaunt one's wealth.
We learn too that servants and laborers are well taken care of at Penshurst (implying that they are not at other grand estates) and that guests are not begrudged the food and drink the family freely offers them. We also learn that the earl can rest easy in knowing his children are his own. In other words, his wife is not sleeping with other men:

Thy lady's noble, fruitful, chaste withal.
His children thy great lord may call his own,
A fortune in this age but rarely known.

All of this both praises the Sidneys for their virtues but also condemns the morals of others of their aristocratic class.