head or tail, they were which brought the term sterling into use: nor even whether, as we think likely, the term is older English than has been supposed, as it certainly was older Scotch. What, seems to us certain is this, that the word is derived from star, and not from eastern. This has been the opinion of a minority among the writers, Polydore Vergil, for instance, in older times, and Bishop Nicolson in more modern times.

It is certain that the Germans were called Easterlings and Osterlings. It is certain also that one German, Otho, surnamed Cuneator or The Coiner, was largely employed in England. We have no evidence of any other person from the east being so employed. Bishop Nicolson affirms that the Prussians and other neighbours of the Baltic who are the nations described as Easterlings, had not themselves any silver coin till the 13th century, a period too late for the hypothesis; for which assertion he cites what seems good authority. It is plain enough that the confusion between the two meanings of esterling is of an early date; an old monk of St. Edmondsbury (Ruding) defends the common idea by reminding his readers that, in later times, certain gold coins, though English, were called Florentines (shortened into florins), because the coiner employed was an Italian from Florence. This old monk, Walter de Pinchbeck, may have been the originator of the theory, and the Florentine derivation may have been the means of suggestion.

In all matters of probable reasoning, but especially in etymology, it is to be remembered that a fair percentage of results are such as become, in course of time, highly improbable. The thinker who, as he ought to do, always adopts the most probable conclusion, must make up his mind to be wrong in a certain minority of his cases. A test for determining the circumstances under which the improbable is to be preferred to the probable would be worth, to the human race, the next ten great results of science or observation, even though some things as great as vaccination, railroads, and telegraphs, were to be among them. We can imagine that, a hundred years hence, the buss, as it will then be universally called, which runs along the streets, will be undoubtedly set down as the old English word buss (from the same root as box), meaning any large vehicle, as in the boat (a kindred word) called the herringbuss. Who would hear without laughter the proposal to deduce the word from the last syllable of omnibus, a term derived from carriages open to all, introduced in 1829 from France? What! people would say, do you mean that public carriages were not open to all before these long boxes came into use? Here truth would have to walk off under a cloud of improbability, as she is often obliged to do. The derivation of esterling, which we here reject, is not rejected because it is improbable-for we consider it probable enough à priori-but because we think we see direct evidence in favour of another derivation.

The English coinage, subsequent to the Norman invasion, may be divided into four stages. In the first, lasting till Edward III., and of which we have already spoken, large sums were paid by weight, and small coins served for small transactions. In this stage silver

was the only national coinage, of this no coin was higher than the penny, and all the gold in use, as coin, was from abroad. Gold went by weight, at nine times the value of silver. In the second stage, lasting until the time of Henry VIII., a gold national coinage was gradually introduced, and going down, as we shall see, to rather small sums; the groat of four pence was introduced, and remained throughout the period the highest silver coin. In the third stage, lasting till the time when Newton ruled the Mint, gold coins were greatly multiplied, and higher silver was coined. Gold of much antiquity, and very much clipped, was current at the end of this period, rather by weight than by nominal value. In the fourth period, lasting till our own time, the variety of coins has been considerably diminished, and much approach has been made towards the simplicity of a good system. The establishment of one standard, gold, first by the practical effect of Mint regulations, and afterwards by law, has abolished the greatest source of the confusion of old times, and has turned the idea of money which does not pass for its nominal value into a tradition, or else into a notion attached to paper promises not convertible into gold on demand.

The attempt at a double coinage, with two distinct standards, which lasted till nearly our own time, resulted in a never-ending variation of the value of gold as compared with silver. To this must be joined the gradual depreciation of the silver coin. The pennies of William I. to Henry III. give 17. of money in a pound of silver; the shillings of our day, with the same alloy, give 67. 6s. to the pound of silver; and to this we have come gradually. As to the gold, even after allowing for the changes requisite to meet the depreciation of the silver, there is a large variation, due partly to fluctuations of relative value, partly to the exigencies of the times. The florins of Edward III. gave 157. of money to the pound of gold; the nobles of Edward IV. gave 227. 10s. Henry VIII. coined, at different periods, sovereigns of 277., 287. 16s., and 307., to the pound of gold; Edward VI. of 347., 287. 16s., 36l., 337. The gold coins were in circulation at odd farthings a piece; and these values in a state of fluctuation. The consequence must have been, a perpetual adjustment of transactions to the state of the money. On the day we write this, we see in Notes and Queries an extract from churchwardens' accounts of 1551, in which they twice credit themselves “in allowance at the fall of the money.” In many ways it appears that money was a commodity, to be valued like other commodities, and not a measure of value, of which the receiver only inquires whether it be good, that is, really issued by the government.

The work on Arithmetic of Robert Recorde, first published in 1540, about the end of our second period, gives the following as the state of the actual coinage. It is taken from the edition of 1561, the earliest we ever met with, and John Dee, the editor, does not think it necessary to make any remark. The spelling is here modernized.

The only difference between the two crowns lay in the first having a rose over the crown, while the second had four fleur-de-lys round it.

The farthing was only distinguishable from the halfpenny, to many persons, by a cross on one side and a portcullis on the other.

In his edition of 1573, John Dee repeats this table as that of 1540, and says that the coins of 1570 are very different, meaning that various additions and subtractions had been made. He announces a new table at the end of the book, but he either forgot it, or, which is more likely, he found it a harder task than he had supposed to collect and value all the coins in use. Even Recorde himself only professes to give the coins which were most common. The remaining arithmetical authors of the sixteenth century do not attempt a list of coins.

In the editions following 1630, the editors have given a list of the most usual gold coins, and of the silver coins, agreeably to the proclamation of November 23, 1611. The gold is as in the following table, and the silver is described as consisting of the Edward crown, half-crown, shilling, half-shilling, and three-pence; the Philip and Mary shilling and half-shilling; the Mary groat and two-pence; the Elizabeth shilling, nine-pence, six-pence, four-pence, three-pence, two-pence, penny, three-farthings, and halfpenny.

It will easily appear that the counting of money, even in 1540, must have been beyond the power of most, by our usual process of taking coin after coin in the hand. In 1540, a parcel of half and quarter royals, half-sovereigns, &c., with some of each of the two kinds of crowns, would have been a payment requiring writing to make up the total. Whether we take the first period, the second, or the third, we see the reason of the old law which requires the tenant to tender his rent to the landlord at such time before sunset as would leave time to count the money by daylight.

It is evident that by this time our coinage had assumed the character which it now bears; namely, that the gold part of it very much exceeded the silver in value. We must remark the smallness at which the gold coin had arrived: and the value was still further lowered before the end of the century, by wear and by clipping. Small gold coin is an expensive article. It presents a larger surface in proportion to its bulk than the larger coins, and has a much greater wear and tear. Our half-sovereign is a costly convenience. No gold coin has ever given long satisfaction, since the mechanics of coinage has been understood, which is either very much greater or very much less than the sovereign which we have now.

The confusion of the gold coinage was increased by wear, by fraud, by new coins, and by the lowering of the silver, until it reached its highest point in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. The silver coinage had by that time arrived at a deplorable pitch of badness. The great reformation projected by Charles Montague, afterwards Lord Halifax, and carried into effect under his administration by Isaac Newton, was completed in 1699. The history of this magnificent operation has not been properly written by the historians of the coinage, whose attention has been too much engrossed by questions of head and tail. Even the records of the Mint are far from sufficient on this important point. We know that the main body of the imperfect gold was called in, though some of the old caroluses and jacobuses were in circulation for nearly fifty years afterwards; we know also that the silver was thoroughly and radically reformed. Had Newton possessed less fame in other things, his biographers would have given us a little more account of an operation which would have been a lasting reputation to any one else; for private biography frequently amplifies public records. But it has been Newton's fate to have his career in the public service not only thrown into the shade, but its origin attributed to any cause but the right one. With some, it was attributed to Montague's regard for Newton's beautiful niece, Catherine Barton, whom it is hardly possible Montague could have set eyes on when Newton received his first appointment. With others, it is a reward for scientific services,

and an acknowledgment of genius almost divine. There has always been a school of British philosophers who ecstasize when they think of the chief of their body gaining an office of 600l. a-year, accomplishing a harder task than had ever been laid upon any holder of the same office, rising in consequence to a higher post of 15007., and finally gaining a knighthood! With all this science had nothing to do, further than common arithmetic and common chemistry. Montague had sat with Newton in the Convention Parliament, and had had ample means of testing his friend's qualities as a man of business. The operation he projected on the coinage was one of unheard-of difficulty, and many prophecied that it would fail altogether, more, that it would ruin commerce. He therefore secured the strongest scientific assistance he could find, and enlisted Locke, Halley, and Newton in the cause. He could not have stood the risk of any incompetent supporters; for his administrative power depended neither on wealth nor influence, and, though of noble family, he was long called and considered the parvenu of political power. And he tried Newton's price like a prudent minister. The hook was first baited with the third-rate office of comptroller, and when it was found this would not do, with the second-rate office of warden.

The coinage had reached the state of complication now to be described by the time of the Restoration. At this period it was all augmented by proclamation. The following table was collected by William Jeake in 1674, in his " Λογιστκηλογία, or Arithmetick Surveighed and Reviewed," which was published by his son in 1696, the year of Newton's appointment. It was copied into IIarris's "Lexicon Technicium" in 1704, which shows that the necessity for such a table was not then quite obsolete.

This table shows the values of the coins in 1640, and also after the proclamation. Even Jeake does not profess to give all the gold coins, but only most of them. Perhaps the remainder consisted mostly of those foreign gold coins which were settled by another proclamation of the same year.