he Royal Academy and in the following year a full
member. Among other works in St Paul's cathedral are the monuments to
Captain Westcott and Captain Burges, and in Westminster Abbey to Sir Eyre
Coote. His bust of Warren Hastings is in the National Portrait Gallery.
Banks's best-known work is perhaps the colossal group of "Shakespeare
attended by Painting and Poetry," now in the garden of New Place,
Stratford-on-Avon. He died in London on the 2nd of February 1805.
[v.03 p.0334] BANKS AND BANKING. The word "bank," in the economic sense,
covers various meanings which all express one object, a contribution of
money for a common purpose. Thus Bacon, in his essay on _Usury_, while
explaining "how the discommodities of it may be best avoided and the
commodities retained," refers to a "bank or common stock" as an expression
with which his readers would be familiar. Originally connected with the
idea of a mound or bank of earth--hence with that of a _monte_, an Italian
word describing a heap--the term has been gradually applied to several
classes of institutions established for the general purpose of dealing with
money.
[Sidenote: Banking as a business.]
The manner in which a bank prospers is explained by David Ricardo, in his
_Proposals for an Economical and Secure Currency_, in a passage where he
tells us that a bank would never be established if it obtained no other
profits but those derived from the employment of its own capital. The real
advantage of a bank to the community it serves commences only when it
employs the capital of others. The money which a bank controls in the form
of the deposits which it receives and sometimes of the notes which it
issues, is loaned out by it again to those who desire to borrow and can
show that they may be trusted. A bank, in order to carry on business
successfully, must possess a sufficient capital of its own to give it the
standing which will enable it to collect capital belonging to others. But
this it does not hoard. It only holds the funds with which it is entrusted
till it can use them, and the use is found in the advances that it makes.
Some of the deposits merely lie with the bank till the customer draws what
he requires for his ordinary everyday wants. Some, the greater part by far,
of the deposits enable the bank to make advances to men who employ the
funds with which they are entrusted in reproductive industry, that is to
say, in a manner which not only brings back a greater
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