St. James’s Street is a street of memories, if ever there was one in London; to mention all the interesting people who have lodged in it would make a very fair chapter; to record even the bare outlines of the history of its clubs and coffee-houses would form another. Appropriately is it named “St. James’s Street,” for it is pre-eminently _the_ thoroughfare of this aristocratic quarter. Here may still be seen one or two old shops that recall Georgian days, although the street is undergoing such a metamorphosis of rebuilding that one never knows but that some fine morning their familiar fronts may have disappeared; here survive some of the most exclusive and best known of the Clubs which are the particular characteristic of this quarter; and the unchanged front of the Palace at the lower end is such a dominating note in the picture, that, looking down the street, when one of those mists so beloved of Whistler give atmospheric mystery to the thoroughfare, we may almost expect to see Charles II. sauntering through its portals with Rochester or Sedley; or George II. driving through its gates on his way to Kensington Palace or Richmond Park. The history of “_The dear old street of clubs and cribs, As north and south it stretches_,” is one which, if its record were fully written, would be found to have no little connection with the annals of the country. Its position, its proximity to the Palace, its past inhabitants, its famous club houses (where so much of the history of the country was, and is, evolved,) all make for its claim in this respect. [Sidenote: WHITE’S CLUB.] On our left is the famous bow window of “White’s,” where the dandies used to assemble to quiz the ladies on their way to the drawing-rooms. What a history has that club! It has been written, and fills two large volumes, and the “betting book” is a sight for gods and men--if not for young men and maidens. In the old days they used to bet on anything and everything, and there is the story of the man who fell down in a fit, outside the club windows, and wagers being immediately laid as to whether he was dead or not, certain interested members solemnly objected to means being taken to revive the unhappy individual--as it would have affected the validity of the bets laid! [Illustration: White’s Club. JAMES’S STREET IN THE REIGN OF GEORGE III Brooks’s Club.] It was by giving his arm to one then unknown to fame, from the bottom of the street to the door of White’s, that Brummell considered he had rendered a very important service to a young man, and as it were, given him a splendid set-off in life!