The moment beseemed the event, it was a crisis in English history, when heaven's "golden scales" for weighing evil against good were hung-- "Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign," one weighted with a consuming fleet, the other with a falling minister.
The Dutch had just burned the English navy at Chatham; on the other hand, the reign of respectable bigotry was about to pass away with Clarendon.

Far less reputable men were to succeed, but men whose laxity of principle at least excluded intolerance.

The people were on the move, if not, as Milton would have wished, "a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep," at least a faint and weary nation creeping slowly--Tomkyns and all--towards an era of liberty and reason when Tomkyns's imprimatur would be accounted Tomkyns's impertinence..