every man, woman, and child in the Quirinal, with the exception of his Holiness, unless he accepted their terms.  He should have gone out to them and so died, but having missed that opportunity, nothing remained but flight.  He was a mere Pope hostage as long as he stayed in Rome.  Curious, the ‘intervention of the French,’ so long desired by the Italians, and vouchsafed so.[186] The Florentines open their eyes in mute astonishment, and some of them ‘won’t read the journals any more.’  The boldest say softly that the Romans are sure not to bear it.  And what is to happen in France?  Why, what a world we have just now....  Father Prout is gone to Rome for a fortnight, has stayed three weeks, and day by day we expect him back again.  I don’t understand how the Prout papers should have hurt him ecclesiastically, but that he should be known for their writer is not astonishing, as the secret was never, I believe, attempted to be kept.  We have been, at least I have been, a little anxious lately about the fate of the ’Blot on the ‘Scutcheon,’ which Mr. Phelps applied for my husband’s permission to revive at Sadler’s.  Of course, putting the request was a mere form, as he had every right to act the play, and there was nothing to answer but one thing.  Only it made one anxious—­made me anxious—­till we heard the result, and we, both of us, are very grateful to dear Mr. Chorley, who not only made it his business to be at the theatre the first night, but, before he slept, sat down like a true friend to give us the story of the result, and never, he says, was a more complete and legitimate success.  The play went straight to the heart of the audience, it seems, and we hear of its continuance on the stage from the papers.  So far, so well.  You may remember, or may not have heard, how Macready brought it out and put his foot on it in the flash of a quarrel between manager and author, and Phelps, knowing the whole secret and feeling the power of the play, determined on making a revival of it on his own theatre, which was wise, as the event proves.  Mr. Chorley called his acting really ‘fine.’  I see the second edition of the ‘Poetical Works’ advertised at last in the ‘Athenaeum,’ and conclude it to be coming out directly.  Also my second edition is called for, only nothing is yet arranged on that point.  We have had a most interesting letter from Mr. Home, giving terrible accounts, to be sure, of the submersion of all literature in England and France since the French Revolution, but noble and instructive proof of individual wave-riding energy, such as I have always admired in him.  He and his wife, he says, live chiefly on the produce of their garden, and keep a cheerful heart for the rest; even the ‘Institutes’ expect gratuitous lectures, so that the sweat of the brain seems less productive than the sweat of the brow.  I am glad that Mr. Serjeant Talfourd and his wife spoke affectionately of my husband, for he is attached to both of them....