DERIVATION OF "STERLING" AND "PENNY"

Your correspondent suggests (No. 24. p. 384.) an ingenious derivation for the word *Sterling*; but one which perhaps he has been too ready to adopt, inasmuch as it helped his other derivation of *peny*, from *pecunia* or *pecus*. I quote the following from *A short Treatise touching Sheriff's Accompts*, by Sir Matthew Hale: London, 1683: "Concerning the second, *viz.* the matter or species whereof the current coin of this kingdom hath been made, it is gold or silver, but not altogether pure, but with an allay of copper, at least from the time of King H. I. and H. II., though possibly in ancien…