and he died, after a
few days' suffering, on the 9th of April 1626.

[v.03 p.0144] _Bacon's Works and Philosophy._

A complete survey of Bacon's works and an estimate of his place in
literature and philosophy are matters for a volume. It is here proposed
merely to classify the works, to indicate their general character and to
enter somewhat more in detail upon what he himself regarded as his great
achievement,--the reorganization of the sciences and the exposition of a
new method by which the human mind might proceed with security and
certainty towards the true end of all human thought and action.

Putting aside the letters and occasional writings, we may conveniently
distribute the other works into three classes, _Professional, Literary,
Philosophical_. The Professional works include the _Reading on the Statute
of Uses_, the _Maxims of Law_ and the treatise (possibly spurious) on the
_Use of the Law_. "I am in good hope," said Bacon himself, "that when Sir
Edward Coke's reports and my rules and decisions shall come to posterity,
there will be (whatsoever is now thought) question who was the greater
lawyer." If Coke's reports show completer mastery of technical details,
greater knowledge of precedent, and more of the dogged grasp of the letter
than do Bacon's legal writings, there can be no dispute that the latter
exhibit an infinitely more comprehensive intelligence of the abstract
principles of jurisprudence, with a richness and ethical fulness that more
than compensate for their lack of dry legal detail. Bacon seems indeed to
have been a lawyer of the first order, with a keen scientific insight into
the bearings of isolated facts and a power of generalization which
admirably fitted him for the self-imposed task, unfortunately never
completed, of digesting or codifying the chaotic mass of the English law.

Among the literary works are included all that he himself designated moral
and historical pieces, and to these may be added some theological and minor
writings, such as the _Apophthegms_. Of the moral works the most valuable
are the _Essays_, which have been so widely read and universally admired.
The matter is of the familiar, practical kind, that "comes home to men's
bosoms." The thoughts are weighty, and even when not original have acquired
a peculiar and unique tone or cast by passing through the crucible of
Bacon's mind. A sentence from the _Essays_ can rarely be mistaken for the
production of any other write