Tell me the truth about Bagehot: lender of last resort in Historical perspective.

After discussion of the lender of last resort before Bagehot, we turn to what Bagehot actually said about the concept, the institutions involved, and appropriate lending terms for the Bank of England in a crisis. We examine the application of "Bagehot principles" in several nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century episodes. By operating through the discount houses in the nineteenth century, the Bank of England was able to focus on the quality of the paper presented for discounting, rather than on the solvency of each individual bank. Emphasis was thus on the stability of the system, not of individual banks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]