ne
stroke to save his righteousness in the introduction and his face in the
text.

Hill's authorship of the introductory letters is easily established.
Anna Laetitia Barbauld includes Hill's signature with a reduced version
of the one which here begins on page xvi (December 17, 1740).[9]
Thereafter, Richardson's italicized remarks, two of them added in later
editions, provide the links: "_Abstract of a second Letter from the same
Gentleman_," etc.

With wonderful indirection, Richardson had sent a copy of _Pamela_ to
Hill's daughters, along with some other books, and, as Hill writes
Mallet, "without the smallest _hint_, that it was _his_, and with a
grave apology, as for a _trifle_, of too light a species."[10] Hill
thanked Richardson in the letter of December 17, 1740. Hill asks who on
earth the author might be, hinting, the while, by returning Richardson's
own phrase, that he understands that it is Richardson himself: "this
_Trifle_ (for such, I dare answer for the _Author_, His Modesty
misguides him to think it)." Though Hill tells Mallet that Richardson
was "very loth ... a long time, to confess it," Richardson did not dally
long. By December 29, 1740, he has confirmed Hill's guess. On that date
Hill writes:

Acquainted with the amiable goodness of your heart, I can foresee
the pleasure it will give you, to have given another pleasure: and
you heap it on me in the noblest manner, by the joy you make me
feel, at finding _Pamela's_ incomparable author is the person I not
only hop'd to hear was so, but whom I should have been quite
griev'd, disturb'd, and mortified, not to have really found so.

Yet, I confess, till I began to read, I had not the least notion of
it. But I presently took notice, that whatever _Pamela_ thought,
said, or did, was all transfusion of your own fine spirit. And as I
know not if there lives another writer, who could furnish her with
such a sapid sweetness as she fills the table with, I could not
therefor chuse but name _you_ to my hope, as moulder of this maiden
model.[11]

Mrs. Barbauld omits this letter but prints another from Hill to
Richardson, not to be found now in the Forster collection, bearing the
same date -- December 29, 1740 (I, 56ff.). This letter furnishes the
"_delightful Story, so admirably related_" beginning on page xxxi. From
the second paragraph on ("We have a lively little Boy in the Family"),
the _Pamela_ text is substantially the same as