Page:Essay on the Principles of Translation - Tytler (1791, 1st ed).djvu/252

 tend to say; but we may at least affirm, that he has not conveyed a just one.

what has prevented the translator, who professes that he wished to give a just idea of the merits of his original, from accomplishing what he wished? Not ignorance of the language; for Voltaire, though no great critic in the English tongue, had yet a competent knowledge of it; and the change he has put upon the reader was not involuntary, or the effect of ignorance. Neither was it the want of genius, or of poetical talents; for Voltaire is certainly one of