The origin of the name (Isle of Dogs), given to the marshy tract of land lying within the bold curve of the Thames between Blackwall and Limehouse, is still undetermined.  The common story is, that it receives its name from the king’s hounds having been kept there during the residence of the royal family at Greenwich.  This tradition is wholly unsupported; nor is it very probable that the king’s hounds would be kennelled in this ungenial and inconvenient place, while they could be kept on the Kentish side of the river, in the vicinity of Greenwich Castle, then occupying the site of the present Observatory.

The denominations “isle” and “island” appear to have been bestowed on many places not geographically entitled to them.  The Isle of Dogs, before the construction of the canal which now crosses its isthmus, was in fact a peninsula.  Pepys {142} spent a night in the “isle of Doggs,” as appears by his entry for July 24th, 1665, and again, on the 31st of the same month, he was compelled to wait in the “unlucky Isle of Doggs, in a chill place, the morning cool and wind fresh, above two if not three hours, to his great discontent.”

To the account of Katherine Pegg, given by your correspondents, pp. 90, 91, may be added, that, besides Charles Fitz-Charles, Earl of Plymouth, she had, by Charles II., a daughter, who died in her infancy.  Mrs. Pegg was one of the three wives of Sir Edward Greene, of Sampford (not Samford), near Thaxted, Essex, created a baronet 26th July, 1660 (within two months of the Restoration), to whom she seems to have been not unfitly matched; for it is recorded of him that, “by his extravagancy and love of gambling, he entirely ruined his estate, and his large inheritance passed from his family.”  He had issue two daughters, who married.—­See Burke’s Extinct Baronetage.

I do not think that Katherine Pegg, whose son by the King was born in 1657, was “the pretty woman newly come called Pegg,” saluted by Pepys, 7th May, 1668, as Mr. Cunningham surmises.

J.T.  HAMMACK.

December.

* * * * *

MINOR QUERIES.

The Strand Maypole.—­“E.F.R.” inquires what was the ultimate fate of the “tall Maypole” which “once o’erlooked the Strand”?  It was taken down about the year 1717, when it was found to measure a hundred feet.  It was obtained by Sir Isaac Newton, and borne on a carriage, for timber, to Wanstead, in Essex, the seat of the Earl of Tylney, where, under the direction of the Reverend Mr. Pound Breton, it was placed in the Park, for the erection of a telescope, the largest then in the world, presented by a French gentleman to the Royal Society.