Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela

rence to the gentleman, it would seem, Richardson deletes his flattery of Hill on pages xxix and xxxi, and "some of the most beautiful Letters that have been written in any Language" become simply "Letters." Perhaps Richardson's conscience was bothering him. Perhaps he had heard from his anonymous correspondent after all: he now identifies the gentleman's remarks as coming "in a Letter from the Country." Unless pure fancy, this is new information, for the letter, now in the Forster collection, in no way indicates its place of origin. Richardson's seeking of the gentleman through advertisement in London newspapers suggests that he thought of his correspondent as a city man.

In the fifth edition one detects a certain discomfort with the false editorship and the praise Richardson permits himself with it. His direct response to criticism is slight. He deletes "from low to high Life," since Pamela's Conduct in High Life had appeared four months