good thing by a fixed date, it is hard to see what advantage would have
accrued from delay.

When the day came, some two thousand parsons were turned out of the
Church of England. Among them were included many of the most devout and
some of the most learned of our divines. Their "coming in" had been
irregular, their "going out" was painful.

Save so far as it turned these men out, the Act was a failure. It did
not procure that uniformity in the public worship of God which it
declared was so desirable; it prevented no scandal; it arrested no
decay; it allayed no distemper, and it certainly did not settle the
peace of the Church. Inside the Church the bishops were supine, the
parochial clergy indifferent, and the worshippers, if such a name can
properly be bestowed upon the congregations, were grossly irreverent.
Nor was any improvement in the conduct of the Church service noticeable
until after the Revolution, and when legislation had conceded a somewhat
shabby measure of toleration to those who by that time had become rigid,
traditional, and hereditary dissenters. Then indeed some attempts began
to be made to secure a real uniformity of ritual in the public worship
of the Church of England.[104:1] How far success has rewarded these
exertions it is not for me to say.

Marvell did not remain long at home after his return from Holland. A
strange adventure lay before him. He thus introduces it in a letter
dated 20th June 1663:--

"GENTLEMEN, MY VERY WORTHY FRIENDS,--The relation I have to your
affairs, and the intimacy of that affection I ow you, do both
incline and oblige me to communicate to you, that there is a