She was scarcely seated, and a little general discourse begun, before she told me—at once—that “There was no part she had ever so much wished to act as that of Cecilia.”
I made some little acknowledgment, and hurried to ask when she had seen Sir Joshua Reynolds, Miss Palmer, and others with whom I knew her acquainted.
The play she was to read was “The Provoked Husband.” She appeared neither alarmed nor elated by her summons, but calmly to look upon it as a thing of course, from her celebrity.
I should very much have liked to have heard her read the play, but my dearest Mrs. Delany spent the whole evening with me, and I could therefore take no measures for finding out a convenient adjoining room. Mrs. Schwellenberg, I heard afterwards, was so accommodated, though not well enough for the tea-table.
MR. FAIRLY’S BEREAVEMENT.
Aug. 23.—At St. James’s I read in the newspapers a paragraph that touched me much for the very amiable Mr. Fairly: it was the death of his wife, which happened on the Duke of York’s birth-day, the 16th.[242] Mr. Fairly has devoted his whole time, strength, thoughts, and cares solely to nursing and attending her during a long and most painful illness which she sustained. They speak of her here as being amiable, but so cold and reserved, that she was little known, and by no means in equal favour with her husband, who stands, upon the whole the highest in general esteem and regard of any individual of the household. I find every mouth open to praise and pity, love and honour him.