Whilst still a youngster of seventeen, he wrote a tragedy which he called 'The Conspiracy,' intended for performance at the celebration of the 'Nuptialls of the Lord Charles Herbert and the Lady Villers.' It was played at the Blackfriars Theatre in 1638, and was received with great applause--obtaining high praise from 'rare Ben Jonson' himself. One critic, indeed, objected that the sentiments expressed by the hero of the piece, Cleander, were far beyond his age--seventeen--until he was reminded that that was the age of the author himself. Here is a specimen of the youthful writer's powers: '(_The Rightful Heir to the Crown kept from his inheritance: an angel sings to him sleeping._) 'SONG. 'While Morpheus thus does gently lay His powerful charge upon each part, Making thy spirits ev'n obey The silver charms of his dull art; 'I, thy Good Angel, from thy side-- As smoke doth from the altar rise, Making no noise as it doth glide,-- Will leave thee in this soft surprise; 'And from the clouds will fetch thee down A holy vision, to express Thy right unto an earthly crown; No power can make this kingdom less. 'But gently, gently, lest I bring A start in sleep by sudden flight, Playing aloof, and hovering, Till I am lost unto the sight. 'This is a motion still and soft, So free from noise and cry That Jove himself, who hears a thought, Knows not when we pass by.' The play appears to have been printed without the writer's consent, in 1638, in an imperfect form; but it was not until fifteen years afterwards that he published an amended copy of it under the title of 'Pallantus and Eudora.' He also wrote another play, 'The Tyrant King of Crete,' which was never acted. Many of his sermons too were printed; one of them, Pepys--who seems to have gone almost everywhere, and heard almost everything--listened to in 1663: 'At Chapel I had room in the Privy Seale pewe with other gentlemen;' but he has left no record of the impression produced. Probably, therefore, it was not very deep or lasting; and, in fact, the sermons have no special excellence: yet there is something true and pathetic in this saying: 'Misery lays stronger bonds of love than Nature; and they are more than one, whom the same _misfortune_ joined together, than to whom the same womb gave life.' The Rev. W. J. Loftie, in his 'History of the Savoy,' tells us that Henry Killigrew succeeded Sheldon as Master, and that he was no more careful and economic in the management of the decaying establishment than was his predecessor; yet King William III.'s Commissioners tell a somewhat different story, and describe him as 'a man of generous and public spirit, as his expenses in the Chapel of the said Hospital, and of King Henry VII. at Westminster, who was the founder of the said Hospital, do sufficiently testify.'