Note 97 — WINDSOR FOREST.
Reading edition
Originally:
Happy the man, who to these shades retires, But doubly happy, if the muse inspires! Blest whom the sweets of home-felt quiet please; But far more blest, who study joins with ease.—Pope.
The turn of this passage manifestly proves that our poet had in view that incomparable encomium of Virgil's second Georgic on philosophy and a country life.—Wakefield.
In addition to the imitation of the second Georgic, and the translation of lines in Horace and Lucan, Pope adopted hints, as Warton has remarked, from Philips's Cider:
He to his labour hies Gladsome, intent on somewhat that may ease Unhealthy mortals, and with curious search Examines all the properties of herbs, Fossils and minerals, &c. or else his thoughts Are exercised with speculations deep, Of good, and just, and meet, and th' wholesome rules Of temperance, and ought that may improve The moral life; &c.