t nor digne,
But in his teaching discreet and benign.
For to draw folk to heaven by fairness,
By good ensample, this was his business:
But were there any person obstinate,
What so he were, of high or low estate,
Him would he sharply snub at once. Than this
A better priest, I trow, there nowhere is.
He waited for no pomp and reverence,
Nor made himself a spiced conscience;
But Christes lore and His Apostles' twelve
He taught, but first he followed it himself.

The most striking features in this portrait are undoubtedly those which
are characteristics of the good and humble working clergyman of all
times; and some of these, accordingly, Goldsmith could appropriately
borrow for his gentle poetic sketch of his parson-brother in "Sweet
Auburn." But there are likewise points in the sketch which may be
fairly described as specially distinctive of Wyclif's Simple
Priests--though, as should be pointed out, these Priests could not
themselves be designated parsons of towns. Among the latter features
are the specially evangelical source of the "Parson's" learning and
teaching; and his outward appearance--the wandering, staff in hand,
which was specially noted in an archiepiscopal diatribe against these
novel ministers of the people. Yet it seems unnecessary to conclude
anything beyond this: that the feature which Chaucer desired above all
to mark and insist upon in his "Parson," was the Poverty and humility
which in him contrasted with the luxurious self-indulgence of the
"Monk," and the blatant insolence of the "Pardoner." From this point of
view it is obvious why the "Parson" is made brother to the "Ploughman."
For, in drawing the latter, Chaucer cannot have forgotten that other
Ploughman whom Langland's poem had identified with Him for whose sake
Chaucer's poor workman laboured for his poor neighbours, with the
readiness always shown by the best of his class. Nor need this
recognition of the dignity of the lowly surprise us in Chaucer, who had
both sense of justice and sense of humour enough not to flatter one
class at the expense of the rest, and who elsewhere (in the "Manciples
Tale") very forcibly puts the truth that what in a great man is called
a coup d'etat is called by a much simpler name in a humbler
fellow-sinner.

But though, in the "Parson of a Town," Chaucer may not have wished to
paint a Wycliffite priest--still less a Lollard, under which
designation so many varieties of malcontents