Chapter 2 turns to the works of Ben Jonson, focusing primarily on how “To Penshurst” (ca. 1616) localizes pastoral and georgic literature in an actual rural estate. Digby was Jonson’s patron and eventual literary executor and was likely influenced by Jonson’s poetic representations of nature. Jonson depicts oeconomy as nature’s organizing principle through the depiction of a functioning rural estate. Penshurst is characterized by sustainable resource yields achieved through a careful balance of production and consumption and by the predictable actions of its denizens, who willingly sacrifice themselves to the estate’s productive cycles. However, rather than depict himself as part of this system, Jonson inserts himself into the poem as a gluttonous parasite, disruptive of the very balance that the poem takes pains to achieve. I argue that this disruption enables Jonson to exert his autonomy from both oppressively predictable natural systems and the analogous networks of patronage that facilitate the poem’s creation.