"This world nis but a thurghfare ful of wo, And we ben pilgrimes, passinge to and fro; Deeth is an ende of every worldly sore."[36] "Her nis non hoom, her nis but wildernesse. Forthe, pylgrime, forthe! forthe, beste out of thi stal! Knowe thi contree, look up, thank God of al!"[37] The finest character in the company is that of the Parish Priest, who attends to his flock like a good Samaritan:-- "But Cristes lore, and his apostles twelve, He taughte, and first he folwed it him-selve." IV. The largeness of his view of human nature is remarkable. Some poets, either intentionally or unintentionally, paint one type of men accurately and distort all the rest. Chaucer impartially portrays the highest as well as the lowest, and the honest man as well as the hypocrite. The pictures of the roguish Friar and the self-denying Parish Priest, the Oxford Scholar and the Miller, the Physician and the Shipman, are painted with equal fidelity to life. In the breadth and kindliness of his view of life, Chaucer is a worthy predecessor of Shakespeare. Dryden's verdict on Chaucer's poetry is: "Here is God's plenty." V. His love of nature is noteworthy for that early age. Such lines as these manifest something more than a desire for rhetorical effect in speaking of nature's phenomena:-- "Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe, That hast this wintres weders over-shake, And driven awey the longe nightes blake[38]!"[39] His affection for the daisy has for five hundred years caused many other people to look with fonder eyes upon that flower. VI. He stands in the front rank of those who have attempted to tell stories in melodious verse. Lowell justly says: "One of the world's three or four great story-tellers, he was also one of the best versifiers that ever made English trip and sing with a gayety that seems careless, but where every foot beats time to the tune of the thought." [Illustration: MORRIS DANCERS._From a Manuscript of Chaucer's Time._] VII. He is the first great English author to feel the influence of the Renaissance, which did not until long afterward culminate in England. Gower has his lover hear tales from a confessor in cloistered quiet. Chaucer takes his Pilgrims out for jolly holidays in the April sunshine. He shows the spirit of the Renaissance in his joy in varied life, in his desire for knowledge of all classes of men as well as of books, in his humor, and in his general reaching out into new fields. He makes us feel that he lives in a merrier England, where both the Morris dancer and the Pilgrim may show their joy in life.