What makes a happy life? Use examples from the poem "The Character of a Happy Life" by Henry Wotton.

While the other two answers see Rousseau, I see Rudyard Kipling and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

To me, this poem has a vision of happiness very much like that of Kipling's "If."  He says that a happy man doesn't let his passions rule him, doesn't care what rumors there are about him, and doesn't envy anyone else.  Those sound very much like Kipling's "stiff upper lip" criteria for being a man.

This also reminds me of Emerson, who says that being true to yourself only is what makes you happy and properly human.  This says that a happy man is one who does not serve another's will and doesn't care what others think of him.

So, that's what this poem says to me.