and forty in his rank of life.  From all I elicited, and also from certain corroborative proofs, which I do not think it necessary now to specify, I have no hesitation in declaring, for the information of the profession to which I do not belong, and of the public generally, that in this case my abstruse remedies had not a fair trial, inasmuch as the patient’s state was vulgarly simple.  He had been drunk the night before!

J. ST. J.L.

Fraser’s Magazine.

* * * * *

RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS.

HISTORY OF THE PENNY.

(For the Mirror.)

  “She sighs and shakes her empty shoes in vain,
  No silver-penny to reward her pain.”

Dryden.

According to Camden and Spelman, the ancient English penny[2] was the first silver coin struck in England, and the only one current among our Saxon ancestors.

In the time of Ethelred, it was equal in weight to our threepence.  Till the time of King Edward I. the penny was struck with a cross, so deeply indented in it, that it might be easily broken, and parted on occasion into two parts, thence called half-pennies; or into four, thence called fourthings, or farthings; but that prince coined it without indenture, in lieu of which he struck round halfpence and farthings.  He also reduced the weight of the penny to a standard, ordering that it should weigh thirty-two grains of wheat taken out of the middle of the ear.  This penny was called the penny sterling.  Twenty of these pence were to weigh an ounce; whence the penny became a weight, as well as a coin.  By subsequent acts it has been further reduced.  In ancient statutes, the penny was used for all silver money; hence the ward-penny, the avert-penny, the rete-penny, &c.

The ward-penny was formerly a customary due paid to the sheriff, or other officer, for maintaining watch and ward.  It was payable at the feast of St. Martin; and is still paid within the manor of Sutton Colfield, in Warwickshire, and that with some very singular ceremonies.

The aver-penny, or average-penny, was contributed towards the king’s averages, or money given to be freed thereof.

The rete-penny was an ancient customary due of one penny for every person to the parish priest.

The schar-penny was a compensation paid by tenants who neglected to pen up their cattle at night in the pounds or yard of their lord, for the benefit of their dung, or scearn, as the Saxons called it.

Peter-pence were an ancient tax of a penny on each house throughout England, paid to the Pope.  It was called Peter-pence because collected on the day of St. Peter ad vincula.  By the Saxons it was called Rome-feoh—­i.e. the fee of Rome; and also Rome-scot, and Rome-pennying, because collected and sent to Rome.  And lastly, it was called hearth-money, because every dwelling-house was liable to it, provided there were thirty pence vivae pecuniae belonging to it—­nay, every religious house, the Abbey of St. Alban’s alone excepted.  It was finally prohibited under Queen Elizabeth.