Variable weather. This is Ash Wednesday by the Church Calendar. After the usual labors I went out at noon with General Burlow to present him to Lord Houghton. Found him at home, in the midst of confusion, as Lady Houghton has not yet come to set things to rights. He was courteous however as usual, and engaged the General to go with him to the Cosmopolitan Club in the evening. This having been arranged, I left the General to make his way to Arilie Lodge, and returned home to resume work. News from America indicating progress almost unopposed by General Sherman. He has reached the seat of government of South Carolina. At last the armed hand has reached that nurse of seditions, and is dealing out evenhanded justice in the midst of the slave population. To her emancipation is most222 emphatically revolution. For a large majority are blacks. Charles writes me that his Colonel has resigned, in which case he takes his place. This will interfere with his favorite object. Walked today to Leicester Square to see the ruins made by the great fire of yesterday. I went under the impression that the building was the same originally belonging to the Earl of Leicester, and afterwards made celebrated as the residence of Frederick, Prince of Wales, where his son George III was born. This was a mistake. That edifice had been pulled down, but on a part of the ground had been built Saville House the residence in the last century of Sir George Saville, who played his part in the Whig organization of his day. The George Gordon mob made mince meat of it, after which it passed along from bad to worse. It was the place of Miss Linward’s museum when I was a boy. It had now become a miscellaneous assortment of dining, dancing and gaming halls in the heat of a most equivocal population. French people of the middling class consort there, but the region is the notorious resort of myriads of prositutues who patrol the streets from teh Haymarket to Portland place. Such are the vicissitudes of a great town. The abodes of Princes in one century became the residence of harlots. There was a great crowd about the ruins, and by no means a good looking one, so I retreated. Dined with Mr and Mrs Hankey. Only Sir William Alexander, Mr Shaw Lefevre, and Colonel Dunne, an Irish member. We remained talking until after eleven o’clock.