But not always have the residents been of noble birth or irreproachable morals, and as we again emerge into Pall Mall by the Army and Navy Club’s gorgeous buildings--the work of Parnell, and standing on the spot where once the famous Raggett, the proprietor of White’s, opened the unsuccessful Union Club--we are reminded that in a small house on part of its site once lived that Moll Davis, the actress, whose singing of an old ballad attracted the questionable attentions of Charles II. The footsteps of the Merry Monarch must have often echoed in the Square, where the siren dwelt, and where also lived so many of his friends and acquaintances. Other footsteps have been heard here; those of Johnson and Savage, who, cold and hungry, passed a whole night wandering round the central garden with its statue of King William III. (which was so unconscionable a time in getting itself erected), while they settled the affairs of the nation and dreamed of that immortality which one, at least, was to attain. By the bye, that open space, formerly a mere rubbish heap, has seen many vicissitudes. Once it had a considerable piece of water within its enclosure, and was octagonal in shape; earlier still it was merely enclosed by posts and rails in a most uncompromising square; to-day it is, to use a much-loved 18th century word, an “umbrageous” garden. The present inhabitants would be sufficiently startled if Mr. Brock were to suggest a display of fireworks there; but in past days this was a regular concomitant to any great public rejoicings, and many of the influential residents interested themselves in these “_feux d’artifice_.” The victory of the Boyne, the capture of Namur, the Peace of Ryswick were some of the more notable occasions for, as contemporary prints assure us, really remarkable efforts in pyrotechnic display. But we must quit St. James’s Square, with its historic memories, its ghosts of the great and beautiful; its houses built by the Brettinghams, Storys, Barebones, and Friths, and decorated by the Adams, the Kauffmanns, the Ciprianis, and the Amiconis of a past day; and to do so let us retrace our steps to its north side, where York Street will lead us into Jermyn Street. [Sidenote: JERMYN STREET.] It is not difficult to trace the name of York Street to the Duke of York, who afterwards became an unpopular king; but it requires some effort of the imagination to connect with Apple-tree Yard, in the same street, that orchard of apple-trees for which this spot was famous in the reign of Charles I. When the Spanish Ambassador was living in St. James’s Square, the chapel connected with the Embassy was situated in York Street, and the building, with the arms of Castile upon it, was standing till so recently as 1877.