WILLIAM BELL, Phil. Dr. * * * * * DICK SHORE--ISLE OF DOGS--KATHERINE PEGG. I entirely concur in the opinion of your able correspondent, Mr. P. Cunningham, that Pepys's _Diary_ is well deserving all the illustrative light which may be reflected upon it from your useful pages. In submitting the following Query, however, my object is to glean a scrap of information on a point connected with the neglected topography of the east end of London, taking Pepys for my text. In the _Diary_, the entry for January 15th, 1660-61, contains this passage:-- "We took barge and went to Blackwall, and viewed the Dock and the new west Dock which is newly made there, and a brave new merchantman which is to launched shortly, and they say to be called the Royal Oake. Hence we walked to _Dick Shoare_, and thence to the Towre, and so home."--Vol. i. p. 178. new Ed. I shall be glad to learn from any of your readers what part of the northern bank of the river, between Blackwall and the Tower, was called _Dick Shore_. It is not marked on any of the old maps of London I have been able to consult; but it was probably beyond the most easterly point generally shown within their limits. The modern maps present no trace of the locality in question. The dock-yard visited by Pepys was long one of the most considerable private ship-building establishments in England. For may years it was conducted by Mr. Perry, and subsequently, under the firm of Wigram and Green, the property having been purchased by the late Sir Robert Wigram, Bart. The extensive premises are still applied to the same use; but they have been divided to form two distinct yards, conducted by separate firms. 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."