Page:Essay on the Principles of Translation - Tytler (1791, 1st ed).djvu/255

 the basis of the wit of Voltaire. It is of a very different species from that wit which is associated with humour, which is exercised in presenting odd, extravagant, but natural views of human character, and which forms the essence of ludicrous composition. The novels of Voltaire have no other scope than to illustrate certain philosophical doctrines, or to expose certain philosophical errors; they are not pictures of life or of manners; and the persons which figure in them are pure creatures of the imagination, fictitious beings, who have nothing of nature in their composition, and who neither act nor reason like the ordinary race of men. Voltaire, then, with a great deal of wit, seems to have had no talent for humorous composition. Now if such is the character of his original genius, we may