262] 



A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



don, October 9, 1660, and consecrated on the 28th of the same 

 month. Dr. Sheldon also held the Mastership of the Savoy, where 

 the famous Conference between the episcopal and presby terian clergy 

 was held at his lodgings in 1661. At this conference Dr. Sheldon 

 exerted himself with his usual zeal and ability in favour of the es- 

 tablished Church, and upon the death of Archbishop Juxon in 1663, 

 he was elected to the See of Canterbury. Thus, by a series of pre- 

 ferments most honourably obtained, this eminent prelate arrived at 

 the very summit of episcopal power and authority. 



In the year 1665, Archbishop Sheldon gave unequivocal proofs 

 of his magnanimity and charity by continuing at his palace at Lam- 

 beth during the plague, and exerting himself to the utmost of his 

 power in aid of many afflicted and necessitous individuals. 



On the 21st of December 1667, Archbishop Sheldon was elected 

 Chancellor of the University of Oxford, but he did not hold that 

 highest academical distinction long, for he resigned the office on 

 the 31st of July, 1669. After a long, active, and well-spent life, 

 this venerable prelate died at Lambeth, November 9, 1677, in the 

 eightieth year of his age. His remains were interred in Croydon 

 Church, in Surrey, where a monument was erected to his memory, 

 by his nephew and heir, Sir Joseph Sheldon, the son of his eldest 

 brother, Ralph Sheldon, of Stanton, in Staffordshire. 



From an impartial review of contemporary writers respecting the 

 public and private character of this eminent man, it appears that 

 he was more distinguished as a politician than a divine. His zeal for 

 the Church, and his resentment of personal injuries, made him take 

 a decided and severe part in the enactment of penal laws against 

 the non-conformists. 



Parker says, " Archbishop Sheldon was a man of undoubted 

 piety; but though he was very assiduous at prayers, yet he did not 

 set so great a> value on them as others did, nor regarded so much 

 worship as the use of worship, placing the chief point of religion in 

 the practice of a good life. His advice to young noblemen and 

 gentlemen, who by their parents' command resorted daily to him, 

 was always : 'Let it be your principal care to be honest men, and 

 afterwards be as devout and religious as you will. No piety will 

 be of any advantage to yourselves or any body else, unless you are 

 honest and moral men/ His worthy notions of religion meeting 

 with an excellent temper in him, gave him that even tranquillity 

 of mind by which he was still himself, and always the same, in 

 adversity as well as in prosperity ; and neither over-rated nor des- 



