The smart ladies often seen shopping in Bond Street from neat broughams and landaus, drawn by high-stepping horses, are mainly people whose names figure largely in the so-called "society" papers; their goings and comings, be they aristocratic or theatrical, are all, therefore, carefully noted by the ubiquitous "lady reporter;" terrible fate of the well-known or well-born! But it is an age of advertisement; and who shall say entirely on which side the fault lies? Where these leaders of society shop now, other generations of fair dead ladies, gone "with the snows of yesteryear," have in their turn enjoyed the dear delights of lace, millinery, and jewels. Here the "ladies of St. James's," in the eighteenth century, revelled in their "lutestrings," "dimitys," "paduasoys"; and, to flaunt it over their less fortunate sisters, bought the very newest new thing in turbans. Piccadilly, doubtless, looked a trifle brighter and smarter in those days of less smoke, as befitted the "court end of the town;" and the young "swells" of the day presented a braver array in their laces, ruffles, and knee-breeches. Then, as now, the Holbein-like Gate of St. James's Palace, dignified in sober red-brick, stood sentinel at the bottom of St. James's Street,--the street thus alluded to by Sheridan: "The Campus Martius of St. James's Street, Where the beaux' cavalry pace to and fro, Before they take the field in Rotten Row." [Illustration: _In Regent Street._] St. James's Street, with all its byways and purlieus, has always been greatly in request for exclusive and smart clubs, as well as for bachelors' lodgings of the luxurious kind. It has also literary associations. St. James's Place, where Addison lived, was also noted for the residence of the old banker-poet Samuel Rogers; this was his home for fifty-five years, and here, at No. 22, he gave his famous "literary breakfasts." Of old the most exclusive gathering in this region was "Almack's," ruled by the famous Lady Jersey, "the seventh heaven of the fashionable world." It is situated in King Street, and is now "Willis's Rooms." St. James's, as a rule, is "exclusive" enough still; but the neighbourhood has in other ways gone through many changes. The great house built by Nash for the Regent,--Carlton House, beyond Pall Mall,--has vanished like Aladdin's Palace, and has left in its place only one big column, a flight of noble steps, and a stately terrace of palatial mansions,--Carlton-House-Terrace, overlooking the Mall. This Phoenix-like spirit of London, ever rising anew on its own ashes, was always dear to Thackeray. Here is one of his inimitable passages on the subject, thrown off at random: