That authority is most conveniently expressed by a Government, as the representative of the aggregate power of society. The metal itself, unless in the shape of coined money, would not represent a definite value; because the metal might be depreciated in value by the admixture of baser or inferior metals, unless it bore the impress of authority to determine its value. The exchangers of the metal for other articles of utility could not, without great loss of labour, be constantly employed in reducing it to the test of value, even if they had the knowledge requisite for so ascertaining its value. It used to cost 1000_l._ a year to the Bank of England for the wages of those who weighed the gold coin brought to the Bank; and it has been estimated that 30,000 sovereigns pass over the Bank counter daily. A machine is now used at the Bank, which separates the full-weight sovereigns and the light ones, at the rate of 10,000 an hour. In Greece a piece of gold in the rude times was stamped with the figure of an ox, to indicate that it would exchange for an ox. In modern England, a piece of gold, called a sovereign, represents a certain weight in gold uncoined, and the Government stamp indicates its purity; whilst the perpetual separation of the light sovereigns from those of full-weight affords a security that very few light ones are in general circulation. A sovereign purchases so many pounds weight of an ox, and a whole ox purchases so many sovereigns. The great use of the coined metal is to save labour in exchanging the ox for other commodities. The money purchases the ox, and a portion of the ox again purchases some other commodity, such as a loaf of bread from the baker, who obtains a portion of the ox through the medium of the money, which is a standard of value between the bread and the beef. Our great poetical satirist, Pope, in conducting his invective against the private avarice and political corruption of his day, imagines a state of things in which, money and credit being abolished, ministers would bribe and be bribed in kind. It is a true picture of what would be universal, if the exchanges of men resolved themselves into barter: "A statesman's slumbers how this speech would spoil! 'Sir, Spain has sent a thousand jars of oil; Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door; A hundred oxen at your levee roar.'" CHAPTER VI. Importance of capital to the profitable employment of labour--Contrast between the prodigal and the prudent man: the Dukes of Buckingham and Bridgewater--Making good for trade--Unprofitable consumption--War against capital in the middle ages--Evils of corporate privileges--Condition of the people under Henry VIII.