These Proposals for Matches are real, and I do promise to manage them and such like with so much Secresie and Prudence that none shall discourse with their best Friends, with more Confidence of Fidelity than with me, let them be of what Rank soever.*
Notwithstanding these honest statements, Houghton appears to have been sadly teased on account of this innovation, for shortly after the above he once more attempted an explanation:—
I thought what I said before about Matches, was very intelligible, but I find otherwise: The Case is thus:
A. comes to me and says: his Friend has a Kinsman that he would be glad to have match’d, and he is a sober, well-bred, comely, understanding Man, and in so good an Employment, that with his Fortune he shall deserve a vertuous, well-bred, discreet, comely Wife with a Fortune of £1000, but his Kinsman has not much Acquaintance and is bashful. This I publish and then comes B. and says his Friend has a Kinswoman qualified as above, and he