Monumental Brasses.—­In reply to S.S.S. (Vol. i., p. 405.), I beg to inform him that the “small dog with a collar and bells” is a device of very common occurrence on brasses of the fifteenth and latter part of the fourteenth centuries.  The Rev. C. Boutell’s Monumental Brasses of England contains engravings of no less than twenty-three on which it is to be found; as well as two examples without the usual appendages of collar, &c.  In addition to these, the same work contains etchings of the following brasses:—­Gunby, Lincoln., two dogs with plain collars at the bottom of the lady’s mantle, 1405.  Dartmouth, Devon., 1403.  Each of the ladies here depicted has two dogs with collars and bells at her feet.

The same peculiarities are exemplified on brasses at Harpham, York., 1420; and Spilsby, Lincoln., 1391.  I will not further multiply instances, as my own collection of rubbings would enable me to do.  I should, however, observe, that the hypothesis of S.S.S. (as to “these figures” being “the private mark of the artist”) is untenable:  since the twenty-three examples above alluded to are scattered over sixteen different counties, as distant from each other as Yorkshire and Sussex.  Two examples are well known, in which the dog so represented was a favourite animal:—­Deerhurst, Gloc., 1400, with the name, “Terri,” inscribed; and Ingham, Norfolk, 1438, with the name “Jakke.”  This latter brass is now lost, but an impression is preserved in the British Museum.  The customary explanation seems to me sufficient:  that the dog was intended to symbolise the fidelity and attachment of the lady to her lord and master, as the lion at his feet represented his courage and noble qualities.

W. SPARROW SIMPSON.

Queen’s College, Cambridge, April 22. 1850.

Fenkle Street.—­A street so called in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, lying in a part of the town formerly much occupied by garden ground, and in the immediate vicinity of the house of the Dominican Friars there.  Also, a way or passage inside the town wall, and leading between that fortification and the house of the Carmelites or White Friars, was anciently called by the same name.  The name of Fenkle or Finkle Street occurs in several old towns in the North, as Alnwick, Richmond, York, Kendal, &c. Fenol and finugl, as also finul, are Saxon words for fennel; which, it is very probable, has in some way or other given rise to this name.  May not the monastic institutions have used fennel extensively in their culinary preparations, and thus planted it in so great quantities as to have induced the naming of localities therefrom?  I remember a portion of the ramparts of the town used to be called Wormwood Hill, from a like circumstance.  In Hawkesworth’s Voyages, ii. 8., I find it stated that the town of Funchala, on the island of Madeira, derives its name from Funcko, the Portuguese name for fennel, which grows in great plenty upon the neighbouring rocks.  The priory of Finchale (from Finkel), upon the Wear, probably has a similar origin; sed qu.