Page:Essay on the Principles of Translation - Tytler (1791, 1st ed).djvu/249

 of thought and abrupt transitions of the original, Voltaire has in this passage, by the looseness of his paraphrase, allowed some of the most striking beauties, both of the thought and expression, entirely to escape; while he has superadded, with unpardonable licence, several ideas of his own, not only unconnected with the original, but dissonant to the general tenor of the speaker's thoughts. Adopting Voltaire's own style of criticism on the translations of the Abbé des Fontaines, we may ask him, "Where do we find in this translation of Hamlet's soliloquy