t I ever heard of was a
hogshead of claret! He died, it is supposed, of a broken heart; and was
buried at the charge of his honest printer, Richard Francklin.'--Lord
Chesterfield's Characters Reviewed, p. 42.

NOTE 5

I have now given in the text the full name of this gallant and excellent
man, and proceed to copy the account of his remarkable conversion, as
related by Doctor Doddridge.

'This memorable event,' says the pious writer, 'happened towards the
middle of July 1719. The major had spent the evening (and, if I mistake
not, it was the Sabbath) in some gay company, and had an unhappy
assignation with a married woman, whom he was to attend exactly at
twelve. The company broke up about eleven, and, not judging it convenient
to anticipate the time appointed, he went into his chamber to kill the
tedious hour, perhaps with some amusing book, or some other way. But it
very accidentally happened that he took up a religious book, which his
good mother or aunt had, without his knowledge, slipped into his
portmanteau. It was called, if I remember the title exactly, The
Christian Soldier, or Heaven taken by Storm, and it was written by Mr.
Thomas Watson. Guessing by the title of it that he would find some
phrases of his own profession spiritualised in a manner which he thought
might afford him some diversion, he resolved to dip into it, but he took
no serious notice of anything it had in it; and yet, while this book was
in his hand, an impression was made upon his mind (perhaps God only knows
how) which drew after it a train of the most important and happy
consequences. He thought he saw an unusual blaze of light fall upon the
book which he was reading, which he at first imagined might happen by
some accident in the candle, but, lifting up his eyes, he apprehended to
his extreme amazement that there was before him, as it were suspended in
the air, a visible representation of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the
cross, surrounded on all sides with a glory; and was impressed as if a
voice, or something equivalent to a voice, had come to him, to this
effect (for he was not confident as to the words), "Oh, sinner! did I
suffer this for thee, and are these thy returns?" Struck with so amazing
a phenomenon as this, there remained hardly any life in him, so that he
sunk down in the arm-chair in which he sat, and continued, he knew not
how long, insensible.'

'With regard to this vision,' says the ingenious Dr. Hibbert, 'the
appearan