A third classification is that of the historical works, which, excepting Voltaire's correspondence, are most voluminous. Mention has been made of the Siècle de Louis XIV and to Essai sur les moeurs, chiefly remarkable for the amount of private, personal information Voltaire was able to include in them. His short monographs on Charles XII and on Peter the Great, as well as the Annales de l'empire, deserve mention. In this field Voltaire was competent enough, but there is no danger of anyone confusing him with an Edward Gibbon.
Voltaire wrote a great deal on the subject of physics in which he demonstrated considerable knowledge, but it is to the philosophical works that we now turn, to two in particular: the Dictionnaire philosophique, which is largely made up of material that he had prepared for the Encyclopédie, of which Diderot may be considered the guiding spirit; and the ambitious Traité de Metaphysique. The first is a prime source for Voltaire's religious and political views; the second, which did not really succeed, merely proves that Voltaire, however intellectual he may have been, was not a philosopher in the sense that Locke or Leibnitz was.
Still another division is that of critical and miscellaneous writing. In pamphlet after pamphlet, he demonstrated superior ability as a journalist. The ones in defence of Calais and others are prime examples. The best of his several critical works is his Commentaire sur Corneille.
