Introduction to Enumerative and Analytic

Combinatorics Second Edition Miklós Bóna pdf

download

https://ebookfinal.com/download/introduction-to-enumerative-and-
analytic-combinatorics-second-edition-miklos-bona/

Explore and download more ebooks or textbooks

at ebookfinal.com
Here are some recommended products for you. Click the link to
download, or explore more at ebookfinal

MacMillan Destination C1 C2 Grammar Vocabulary Malcolm

Mann

https://ebookfinal.com/download/macmillan-destination-c1-c2-grammar-
vocabulary-malcolm-mann/

Annual Reports on NMR Spectroscopy Volume 83 1st Edition

Webb

https://ebookfinal.com/download/annual-reports-on-nmr-spectroscopy-
volume-83-1st-edition-webb/

Enumerative Combinatorics 1st Edition Charalambos A.

Charalambides

https://ebookfinal.com/download/enumerative-combinatorics-1st-edition-
charalambos-a-charalambides/

Using the TI 83 Plus TI 84 Plus Christopher R. Mitchell

https://ebookfinal.com/download/using-the-ti-83-plus-ti-84-plus-
christopher-r-mitchell/
How to Count An Introduction to Combinatorics Second
Edition R.B.J.T. Allenby

https://ebookfinal.com/download/how-to-count-an-introduction-to-
combinatorics-second-edition-r-b-j-t-allenby/

Handbook of Enumerative Combinatorics 1st Edition Miklós

Bóna (Editor)

https://ebookfinal.com/download/handbook-of-enumerative-
combinatorics-1st-edition-miklos-bona-editor/

Combinatorics Second Edition Russell Merris(Auth.)

https://ebookfinal.com/download/combinatorics-second-edition-russell-
merrisauth/

Proc 10th workshop on algorithm engineering 5th workshop

on analytic algorithmics and combinatorics J. Ian Munro

https://ebookfinal.com/download/proc-10th-workshop-on-algorithm-
engineering-5th-workshop-on-analytic-algorithmics-and-combinatorics-j-
ian-munro/

Introduction to Circle Packing The Theory of Discrete

Analytic Functions 1st Edition Kenneth Stephenson

https://ebookfinal.com/download/introduction-to-circle-packing-the-
theory-of-discrete-analytic-functions-1st-edition-kenneth-stephenson/
Introduction to Enumerative and Analytic Combinatorics
Second Edition Miklós Bóna Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Miklós Bóna
ISBN(s): 9781482249101, 1482249103
Edition: 2
File Details: PDF, 4.07 MB
Year: 2016
Language: english
 Mathematics

DISCRETE MATHEMATICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS

SECOND
DISCRETE MATHEMATICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS
EDITION

INTRODUCTION

Introduction to Enumerative and Analytic Combinatorics

“Miklós Bóna has done a masterful job of bringing an overview of all
of enumerative combinatorics within reach of undergraduates. The

TO ENUMERATIVE
two fundamental themes of bijective proofs and generating func-
tions, together with their intimate connections, recur constantly. A

AND ANALYTIC
wide selection of topics, including several never appearing before in
a textbook, is included that gives an idea of the vast range of enu-
merative combinatorics.”
—From the Foreword to the First Edition by Richard Stanley,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA COMBINATORICS
Introduction to Enumerative and Analytic Combinatorics fills the
gap between introductory texts in discrete mathematics and ad-
SECOND EDITION
vanced graduate texts in enumerative combinatorics. The book first

Miklós Bóna
deals with basic counting principles, compositions and partitions,
and generating functions. It then focuses on the structure of per-
mutations, graph enumeration, and extremal combinatorics. Lastly,
the text discusses supplemental topics, including error-correcting
codes, properties of sequences, and magic squares. 20
Strengthening the analytic flavor of the book, this Second Edition:

10 10
• Features a new chapter on analytic combinatorics and new
sections on advanced applications of generating functions
• Demonstrates powerful techniques that do not require the

1
residue theorem or complex integration
• Adds new exercises to all chapters, significantly extending
coverage of the given topics
1
Introduction to Enumerative and Analytic Combinatorics, Second
Edition makes combinatorics more accessible, increasing interest in
this rapidly expanding field.
Bóna

K23708

w w w. c rc p r e s s . c o m

K23708_cover.indd 1 8/27/15 11:28 AM

INTRODUCTION
TO ENUMERATIVE
AND ANALYTIC
COMBINATORICS
SECOND EDITION
 DISCRETE
MATHEMATICS
ITS APPLICATIONS
R. B. J. T. Allenby and Alan Slomson, How to Count: An Introduction to Combinatorics,
Third Edition
Craig P. Bauer, Secret History: The Story of Cryptology
Juergen Bierbrauer, Introduction to Coding Theory
Katalin Bimbó, Combinatory Logic: Pure, Applied and Typed
Katalin Bimbó, Proof Theory: Sequent Calculi and Related Formalisms
Donald Bindner and Martin Erickson, A Student’s Guide to the Study, Practice, and Tools of
Modern Mathematics
Francine Blanchet-Sadri, Algorithmic Combinatorics on Partial Words
Miklós Bóna, Combinatorics of Permutations, Second Edition
Miklós Bóna, Handbook of Enumerative Combinatorics
Miklós Bóna, Introduction to Enumerative and Analytic Combinatorics, Second Edition
Jason I. Brown, Discrete Structures and Their Interactions
Richard A. Brualdi and Dragos̆ Cvetković, A Combinatorial Approach to Matrix Theory and Its
Applications
Kun-Mao Chao and Bang Ye Wu, Spanning Trees and Optimization Problems
Charalambos A. Charalambides, Enumerative Combinatorics
Gary Chartrand and Ping Zhang, Chromatic Graph Theory
Henri Cohen, Gerhard Frey, et al., Handbook of Elliptic and Hyperelliptic Curve Cryptography
Charles J. Colbourn and Jeffrey H. Dinitz, Handbook of Combinatorial Designs, Second Edition
Abhijit Das, Computational Number Theory
Matthias Dehmer and Frank Emmert-Streib, Quantitative Graph Theory:
Mathematical Foundations and Applications
Martin Erickson, Pearls of Discrete Mathematics
Martin Erickson and Anthony Vazzana, Introduction to Number Theory
 Titles (continued)

Steven Furino, Ying Miao, and Jianxing Yin, Frames and Resolvable Designs: Uses,
Constructions, and Existence
Mark S. Gockenbach, Finite-Dimensional Linear Algebra
Randy Goldberg and Lance Riek, A Practical Handbook of Speech Coders
Jacob E. Goodman and Joseph O’Rourke, Handbook of Discrete and Computational Geometry,
Second Edition
Jonathan L. Gross, Combinatorial Methods with Computer Applications
Jonathan L. Gross and Jay Yellen, Graph Theory and Its Applications, Second Edition
Jonathan L. Gross, Jay Yellen, and Ping Zhang Handbook of Graph Theory, Second Edition
David S. Gunderson, Handbook of Mathematical Induction: Theory and Applications
Richard Hammack, Wilfried Imrich, and Sandi Klavžar, Handbook of Product Graphs,
Second Edition
Darrel R. Hankerson, Greg A. Harris, and Peter D. Johnson, Introduction to Information Theory
and Data Compression, Second Edition
Darel W. Hardy, Fred Richman, and Carol L. Walker, Applied Algebra: Codes, Ciphers, and
Discrete Algorithms, Second Edition
Daryl D. Harms, Miroslav Kraetzl, Charles J. Colbourn, and John S. Devitt, Network Reliability:
Experiments with a Symbolic Algebra Environment
Silvia Heubach and Toufik Mansour, Combinatorics of Compositions and Words
Leslie Hogben, Handbook of Linear Algebra, Second Edition
Derek F. Holt with Bettina Eick and Eamonn A. O’Brien, Handbook of Computational Group Theory
David M. Jackson and Terry I. Visentin, An Atlas of Smaller Maps in Orientable and
Nonorientable Surfaces
Richard E. Klima, Neil P. Sigmon, and Ernest L. Stitzinger, Applications of Abstract Algebra
with Maple™ and MATLAB®, Second Edition
Richard E. Klima and Neil P. Sigmon, Cryptology: Classical and Modern with Maplets
Patrick Knupp and Kambiz Salari, Verification of Computer Codes in Computational Science
and Engineering
William Kocay and Donald L. Kreher, Graphs, Algorithms, and Optimization
Donald L. Kreher and Douglas R. Stinson, Combinatorial Algorithms: Generation Enumeration
and Search
Hang T. Lau, A Java Library of Graph Algorithms and Optimization
C. C. Lindner and C. A. Rodger, Design Theory, Second Edition
San Ling, Huaxiong Wang, and Chaoping Xing, Algebraic Curves in Cryptography
Nicholas A. Loehr, Bijective Combinatorics
Toufik Mansour, Combinatorics of Set Partitions
 Titles (continued)

Toufik Mansour and Matthias Schork, Commutation Relations, Normal Ordering, and Stirling
Numbers
Alasdair McAndrew, Introduction to Cryptography with Open-Source Software
Elliott Mendelson, Introduction to Mathematical Logic, Fifth Edition
Alfred J. Menezes, Paul C. van Oorschot, and Scott A. Vanstone, Handbook of Applied
Cryptography
Stig F. Mjølsnes, A Multidisciplinary Introduction to Information Security
Jason J. Molitierno, Applications of Combinatorial Matrix Theory to Laplacian Matrices of Graphs
Richard A. Mollin, Advanced Number Theory with Applications
Richard A. Mollin, Algebraic Number Theory, Second Edition
Richard A. Mollin, Codes: The Guide to Secrecy from Ancient to Modern Times
Richard A. Mollin, Fundamental Number Theory with Applications, Second Edition
Richard A. Mollin, An Introduction to Cryptography, Second Edition
Richard A. Mollin, Quadratics
Richard A. Mollin, RSA and Public-Key Cryptography
Carlos J. Moreno and Samuel S. Wagstaff, Jr., Sums of Squares of Integers
Gary L. Mullen and Daniel Panario, Handbook of Finite Fields
Goutam Paul and Subhamoy Maitra, RC4 Stream Cipher and Its Variants
Dingyi Pei, Authentication Codes and Combinatorial Designs
Kenneth H. Rosen, Handbook of Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics
Douglas R. Shier and K.T. Wallenius, Applied Mathematical Modeling: A Multidisciplinary
Approach
Alexander Stanoyevitch, Introduction to Cryptography with Mathematical Foundations and
Computer Implementations
Jörn Steuding, Diophantine Analysis
Douglas R. Stinson, Cryptography: Theory and Practice, Third Edition
Roberto Tamassia, Handbook of Graph Drawing and Visualization
Roberto Togneri and Christopher J. deSilva, Fundamentals of Information Theory and Coding
Design
W. D. Wallis, Introduction to Combinatorial Designs, Second Edition
W. D. Wallis and J. C. George, Introduction to Combinatorics
Jiacun Wang, Handbook of Finite State Based Models and Applications
Lawrence C. Washington, Elliptic Curves: Number Theory and Cryptography, Second Edition
DISCRETE MATHEMATICS AND ITS APPLICATIONS

INTRODUCTION
TO ENUMERATIVE
AND ANALYTIC
COMBINATORICS
SECOND EDITION

Miklós Bóna
University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida, USA
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300
Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742
© 2016 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

No claim to original U.S. Government works

Version Date: 20150716

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-1-4822-4910-1 (eBook - PDF)

This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reasonable
efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information, but the author and publisher cannot
assume responsibility for the validity of all materials or the consequences of their use. The authors and
publishers have attempted to trace the copyright holders of all material reproduced in this publication
and apologize to copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. If any
copyright material has not been acknowledged please write and let us know so we may rectify in any
future reprint.

Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Law, no part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced,
transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information stor-
age or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers.

For permission to photocopy or use material electronically from this work, please access www.copy-
right.com (http://www.copyright.com/) or contact the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (CCC), 222
Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400. CCC is a not-for-profit organization that pro-
vides licenses and registration for a variety of users. For organizations that have been granted a photo-
copy license by the CCC, a separate system of payment has been arranged.

Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are
used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at
http://www.taylorandfrancis.com
and the CRC Press Web site at
http://www.crcpress.com
 To Linda
To Mikike, Benny, and Vinnie
Contents

Foreword to the first edition xv

Preface to the second edition xvii

Acknowledgments xix

Frequently used notation xxi

I Methods 1
1 Basic methods 3
1.1 When we add and when we subtract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.1 When we add . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.2 When we subtract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.2 When we multiply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.2.1 The product principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.2.2 Using several counting principles . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2.3 When repetitions are not allowed . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.2.3.1 Permutations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.2.3.2 Partial lists without repetition . . . . . . . . 12
1.3 When we divide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3.1 The division principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3.2 Subsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.3.2.1 The number of k-element subsets of an n-
element set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
1.3.2.2 The binomial theorem for positive integer ex-
ponents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.4 Applications of basic counting principles . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.4.1 Bijective proofs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.4.1.1 Catalan numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1.4.2 Properties of binomial coefficients . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.4.3 Permutations with repetition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.5 The pigeonhole principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
1.6 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
1.7 Chapter review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
1.8 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
1.9 Solutions to exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

ix
x Contents

1.10 Supplementary exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

2 Applications of basic methods 55

2.1 Multisets and compositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
2.1.1 Weak compositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
2.1.2 Compositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
2.2 Set partitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.2.1 Stirling numbers of the second kind . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.2.2 Recurrence relations for Stirling numbers of the second
kind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
2.2.3 When the number of blocks is not fixed . . . . . . . . 64
2.3 Partitions of integers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.3.1 Nonincreasing finite sequences of positive integers . . 65
2.3.2 Ferrers shapes and their applications . . . . . . . . . . 68
2.3.3 Excursion: Euler’s pentagonal number theorem . . . . 70
2.4 The inclusion–exclusion principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.4.1 Two intersecting sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.4.2 Three intersecting sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
2.4.3 Any number of intersecting sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
2.4.3.1 An explicit formula for the numbers S(n, k) . 85
2.4.3.2 An application involving linear orders . . . . 87
2.4.3.3 Euler’s φ function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
2.4.3.4 Derangements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
2.4.3.5 Excursion: Another proof of the inclusion–
exclusion principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
2.5 The twelvefold way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
2.6 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
2.7 Chapter review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
2.8 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
2.9 Solutions to exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
2.10 Supplementary exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

3 Generating functions 117

3.1 Power series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
3.1.1 Generalized binomial coefficients . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
3.1.2 Formal power series . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
3.2 Warming up: Solving recurrence relations . . . . . . . . . . . 122
3.2.1 Ordinary generating functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
3.2.2 Exponential generating functions . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
3.3 Products of generating functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
3.3.1 Ordinary generating functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
3.3.2 Exponential generating functions . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
3.4 Compositions of generating functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
3.4.1 Ordinary generating functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
3.4.2 Exponential generating functions . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Contents xi

3.4.2.1 The exponential formula . . . . . . . . . . . 153

3.4.2.2 The compositional formula . . . . . . . . . . 157
3.5 A different type of generating functions . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
3.6 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
3.7 Chapter review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
3.8 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
3.9 Solutions to exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
3.10 Supplementary exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

II Topics 179
4 Counting permutations 181
4.1 Eulerian numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
4.2 The cycle structure of permutations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
4.2.1 Stirling numbers of the first kind . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
4.2.2 Permutations of a given type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
4.3 Cycle structure and exponential generating functions . . . . 200
4.4 Inversions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
4.4.1 Counting permutations with respect to inversions . . . 210
4.5 Advanced applications of generating functions to permutation
enumeration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
4.5.1 The combinatorial meaning of the derivative . . . . . 215
4.5.2 Multivariate generating functions . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
4.6 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
4.7 Chapter review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
4.8 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
4.9 Solutions to exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
4.10 Supplementary exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

5 Counting graphs 237

5.1 Trees and forests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
5.1.1 Trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
5.1.2 The notion of graph isomorphisms . . . . . . . . . . . 243
5.1.3 Counting trees on labeled vertices . . . . . . . . . . . 247
5.1.4 Forests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
5.2 Graphs and functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
5.2.1 Acyclic functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
5.2.2 Parking functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
5.3 When the vertices are not freely labeled . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
5.3.1 Rooted plane trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
5.3.2 Decreasing binary trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
5.4 Graphs on colored vertices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
5.4.1 Chromatic polynomials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273
5.4.2 Colored graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
5.4.2.1 Counting all k-colored graphs . . . . . . . . . 280
xii Contents

5.4.2.2 Counting colored trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

5.5 Graphs and generating functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
5.5.1 Trees counted by Cayley’s formula . . . . . . . . . . . 283
5.5.2 Rooted trees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
5.5.2.1 Ordinary generating functions . . . . . . . . 284
5.5.2.2 Exponential generating functions . . . . . . . 285
5.5.2.3 An application of multivariate generating
functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
5.5.3 Connected graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
5.5.4 Eulerian graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
5.6 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
5.7 Chapter review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
5.8 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
5.9 Solutions to exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
5.10 Supplementary exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

6 Extremal combinatorics 315

6.1 Extremal graph theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
6.1.1 Bipartite graphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
6.1.2 Turán’s theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
6.1.3 Graphs excluding cycles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
6.1.3.1 Convex functions and Jensen’s inequality . . 326
6.1.3.2 Notation in approximate counting . . . . . . 327
6.1.3.3 Refining the results on fC4 (n) . . . . . . . . 328
6.1.3.4 Avoiding longer cycles . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
6.1.4 Graphs excluding complete bipartite graphs . . . . . . 332
6.2 Hypergraphs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
6.2.1 Hypergraphs with pairwise intersecting edges . . . . . 335
6.2.1.1 Sunflowers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
6.2.2 Hypergraphs with pairwise incomparable edges . . . . 341
6.3 Something is more than nothing: Existence proofs . . . . . . 343
6.3.1 Property B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
6.3.2 Excluding monochromatic arithmetic progressions . . 345
6.3.3 Codes over finite alphabets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
6.4 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
6.5 Chapter review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
6.6 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
6.7 Solutions to exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
6.8 Supplementary exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368

III An Advanced Method 371

Contents xiii

7 Analytic combinatorics 373

7.1 Exponential growth rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
7.1.1 Rational functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
7.1.1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
7.1.1.2 Theoretical background . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
7.1.2 Singularity analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
7.1.2.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
7.1.2.2 Analytic functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
7.1.2.3 The complex versions of some well-known
functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
7.1.2.4 Singularities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
7.1.2.5 The main theorem of exponential asymptotics 389
7.2 Polynomial precision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
7.2.1 Rational functions again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
7.2.1.1 Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
7.2.1.2 Multiple singularities in rational functions . 393
7.3 More precise asymptotics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
7.3.1 Entire functions divided by (1 − x) . . . . . . . . . . . 396
7.3.2 Rational functions one more time . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
7.4 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
7.5 Chapter review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
7.6 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
7.7 Solutions to exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
7.8 Supplementary exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414

IV Special Topics 417

8 Symmetric structures 419
8.1 Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
8.2 Finite projective planes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426
8.2.1 Finite projective planes of prime power order . . . . . 429
8.3 Error-correcting codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
8.3.1 Words far apart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430
8.3.2 Codes from designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
8.3.3 Perfect codes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433
8.4 Counting symmetric structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
8.5 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
8.6 Chapter review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445
8.7 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
8.8 Solutions to exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447
8.9 Supplementary exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452
xiv Contents

9 Sequences in combinatorics 455

9.1 Unimodality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
9.2 Log-concavity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
9.2.1 Log-concavity implies unimodality . . . . . . . . . . . 458
9.2.2 The product property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
9.2.3 Injective proofs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463
9.2.3.1 Lattice paths again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466
9.3 The real zeros property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
9.4 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
9.5 Chapter review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
9.6 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
9.7 Solutions to exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475
9.8 Supplementary exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480

10 Counting magic squares and magic cubes 483

10.1 A distribution problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483
10.2 Magic squares of fixed size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484
10.2.1 The case of n = 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
10.2.2 The function Hn (r) for fixed n . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
10.3 Magic squares of fixed line sum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
10.4 Why magic cubes are different . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501
10.5 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
10.6 Chapter review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
10.7 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507
10.8 Solutions to exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
10.9 Supplementary exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519

Appendix The method of mathematical induction 521

A.1 Weak induction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
A.2 Strong induction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522

Bibliography 525

Index 531
Foreword to the first edition

What could be a more basic mathematical activity than counting the number
of elements of a finite set? The misleading simplicity that defines the sub-
ject of enumerative combinatorics is in fact one of its principal charms. Who
would suspect the wealth of ingenuity and of sophisticated techniques that
can be brought to bear on a such an apparently superficial endeavor? Miklós
Bóna has done a masterful job of bringing an overview of all of enumerative
combinatorics within reach of undergraduates. The two fundamental themes
of bijective proofs and generating functions, together with their intimate con-
nections, recur constantly. A wide selection of topics, including several never
appearing before in a textbook, are included that give an idea of the vast
range of enumerative combinatorics. In particular, for those with sufficient
background in undergraduate linear algebra and abstract algebra there are
many tantalizing hints of the fruitful connection between enumerative com-
binatorics and algebra that plays a central role in the subject of algebraic
combinatorics. In a foreword to another book by Miklós Bóna I wrote, “This
book can be utilized at a variety of levels, from random samplings of the trea-
sures therein to a comprehensive attempt to master all the material and solve
all the exercises. In whatever direction the reader’s tastes lead, a thorough
enjoyment and appreciation of a beautiful area of combinatorics is certain to
ensue.” Exactly the same sentiment applies to the present book, as the reader
will soon discover.

Richard Stanley
Cambridge, Massachusetts
June 2005

xv
Preface to the second edition

There are at least three ways to use this book. If one decides to cover every
chapter, and some of the exercises containing new material, then one can
teach a two-semester combinatorics course from the book. Instructors looking
for a text for a course in enumerative combinatorics can teach such a course
selecting chapters with the strongest focus on counting, such as Chapters 2,
3, 4, 5, 7, and 9. Finally, one can teach a one-semester course with a not-
quite-as-strong focus on enumeration by using Chapters 1, 2, 3, and then the
desired chapters from the rest of the book.
Our hope is that our book can broaden access to the fascinating topics of
enumerative and analytic combinatorics, and will prepare readers for the more
advanced, classic books of the field, such as Enumerative Combinatorics by
Richard Stanley and Analytic Combinatorics by Philippe Flajolet and Robert
Sedgewick.
This current edition of the book contains a new chapter on analytic combi-
natorics. Instructors trying to teach that topic to a relatively novice audience
often hit a roadblock when they realize that the audience is unfamiliar with
complex analysis. The goal of this chapter is to at least partially overcome
that roadblock by showing the reader some of the powerful techniques of that
field that do not require the residue theorem or complex integration. Hope-
fully, readers will find the results interesting and that will entice them to learn
the techniques that we only mention here. Strengthening the analytic flavor
of the book, Chapters 4 and 5 have been enhanced by new sections discussing
advanced applications of generating functions. Finally, we added new exer-
cises to all chapters. Just as before, numerous exercises contain material not
discussed in the text, which allows instructors to extend the time they spend
on a given topic.
Combinatorics is a rapidly expanding field, and we hope that our book
will increase the number of students with an interest in it even further.

Gainesville, FL
August 2015

xvii
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
house monarch, "flourished," as histories would say, circa 1860. He
was an M.A. of Cambridge, a man of good family and of high
abilities, but cursed with a gipsy nature, an incurable laziness, and
an unquenchable thirst: the kind of man who is generally, for his
sake and their own, packed off by his family to the Colonies. Fielder
perhaps could not be induced to cross the seas; at anyrate, he
enjoyed an allowance from his family, on the degrading condition
that he kept himself at a distance. He earned the allowance loyally,
and found the society that pleased him most at Upware and in the
inns of the surrounding Fenland villages; so that on leaving the
University he continued to cling to the neighbourhood for many
years, becoming a hero to all the dissolute youngsters at Cambridge.
He it was who originally painted the apt inscription, "Five Miles from
Anywhere," on the gable-wall of this waterside inn, his favourite
haunt, where he lounged and smoked and tippled with the bargees;
himself apeing that class in his dress: coatless, with corduroy
breeches and red waistcoat. A contemporary sketch of him tells of
his thin flowing hair of inordinate length, of his long dirty finger-
nails, and of the far from aromatic odour he gave forth; and
describes his boating expeditions. "He used to take about with him
in his boat an enormous brown-ware jug, capable of holding six
gallons or more, which he would at times have filled with punch,
ladling it out profusely for his aquatic friends. This vast pitcher or
'gotch,' which was called 'His Majesty's pint' ('His Majesty' in allusion
to his self-assumed title), had been made to his own order, and
decorated before kilning with incised ornaments by his own hand.
Amongst these figured prominently his initials 'R. R. F.' and his crest,
actual or assumed, a pheon, or arrow-head." Alluding to his initials,
he would often playfully describe himself as "more R. than F.," which
means (is it necessary to explain?) "more rogue than fool." Eccentric
in every way, he would change his quarters without notice and
without reason, and would remain in bed, smoking and drinking, for
weeks together.
This odd character lingered here for some years after the bargees
had gone, and into the time when even the most rowdy of
Cambridge undergraduates began to find it "bad form" to booze and
be hail-fellow with the village rapscallions of Fenland. Then Fielder
himself "forswore sack and lived cleanly"; or at anyrate deserted his
old haunts. Report tells how he died at last at Folkestone, in
comfortable circumstances and in a quite respectable and
conventional manner.
 XXXVI
Upware Inn has lost a great deal of its old-time look. With something
akin to melancholy the sentimental pilgrim sees a corrugated iron
roof replacing the old thatch of reeds, characteristic of Fenland. The
great poplar, too, has had its curious spreading limb amputated: that
noble branch whereon the King of that Republic sat on summer
evenings and held his disreputable Court. But not everything is
modernised. The Cam is not yet bridged. You still are ferried across
in an uncouth flat-bottomed craft, and they even yet burn peat in
the domestic grates at Upware, so that links yet bind the present
with the past. Peat is the traditional fuel of the Fens, largely
supplanted nowadays by coal, but should coal become permanently
dear, these Cambridgeshire villages would, for sake of its cheapness,
go back to peat and endure its acrid smell and dull smouldering
humour in place of the brightness of a coal fire. At Wicken Fen the
peat is still forming: perhaps the only place in England where the
process is going on. It is still three miles from Upware to this relic of
the untamed wilderness, past Spinney Abbey, now a farmhouse with
few or no relics of the old foundation to be seen. It was in this
farmstead that Henry Cromwell, one of the Protectors sons, lived in
retirement. He was visited here one September day in 1671 by
Charles the Second, come over from Newmarket for the purpose.
What Charles said to him and what Henry Cromwell replied we do
not know, and imagination has therefore the freer rein. But we spy
drama in it, a "situation" of the most thrilling kind. What would you
say to the man who had murdered—judicially murdered, if you like it
—your father? Charles, however, was a cynic of an easy-going type,
and probably failed to act up to the theatrical requirements of the
occasion. At anyrate, Henry Cromwell was not consigned to the
nearest, or any, dungeon. Nothing at all was done to him, and he
died, two years later, at peace with all men. He lies buried in the
little church of Wicken, and was allowed to rest there.
Wicken Fen is just beyond this abbey farmstead. You turn to the
right, along a green lane and across a field, and there you are, with
the reeds and the sedge growing thick in the stagnant water, water-
lilies opening their buds on the surface, and a lazy hum of insects
droning in the still and sweltering air. The painted lady, the swallow-
tail, the peacock, the scarlet tiger, and many other gaily-hued
butterflies float on silent wings; things crawl and creep in the viscous
slime, and on warm summer days, after rain, the steam rises from
the beds of peat and wild growths as from some natural cookshop.
Old windmill pumps here and there dot the banks of the fen, and in
the distance are low hills that form, as it were, the rim of the basin
in which this relic is set.

WICKEN FEN.
Away in one direction rises the tall majestic tower of Soham Church,
deceiving the stranger into the belief that he is looking at Ely
Cathedral, and overlooking what are now the pastures of Soham
Fen; in the days of King Canute that inland sea—that mare de
Soham—which stretched ten miles wide between Mildenhall and Ely.
It was across Soham Mere that Canute came voyaging by Ely, rowed
by knights in his galley, when he heard, while yet a long way off, the
sound of melody. Bidding his knights draw nearer to the Isle, he
found the music to be the monks in the church singing vespers. The
story is more than a legend, and is alluded to in the only surviving
stanza of an ancient song—

"Merie sungen the Muneches binnen Ely

Tha Cnut Ching rew therby.
Roweth cnites noer the lant,
And here we thes Muneches saeng."

It is a story that well pictures the reality—-the actual isolation—of

the Isle, just as does that other, telling how that same Canute,
coming again to Ely for Christmas, found the waters that
encompassed it frost-bound, but so slightly that crossing the ice was
perilous in the extreme. He was thus of necessity halted on the
shores of the frozen mere, and until they found one Brithmer, a
Saxon cheorl of the Fen, skilled in Fen-lore and able to guide the
King and his train across the shallow places where the ice lay thick
and strong, it seemed as though he and his retinue would be unable
to keep the Feast of the Nativity in Ely. Brithmer was a man of
prodigious bulk, nicknamed "Budde," or "the Fat," and where he led
the way in safety men of ordinary weight could follow without fear.
So Canute followed in his sledge, with his Court, and kept Christmas
on the Isle. As for Brithmer, who had performed this service, he was
enlarged from serfdom to be a free man, and loaded with honours.
Indeed, he was probably only known as "the Fat" before this time,
and was doubtless called Brithmer, which means "bright mere," after
this exploit.
 XXXVII
Returning to the old coach road from this expedition, and coming to
it again with a thankful heart, we presently come to Stretham
Bridge, a narrow old hunch-backed brick structure spanning the
Great Ouse, or Old West River, and giving entrance to this Isle of Ely,
of which already we have heard so much, and will now hear more.
The sketch-map that has already shown the Conqueror's line of
march indicates also the size and shape of the Isle: the physical Isle.
For there are really two, the physical and the political. The last-
named comprises the whole of the northern part of Cambridgeshire,
from this point along the Ouse to Upware, and thence, following the
Cambridgeshire border, round to Littleport and Tydd St. Giles in the
north, by the neighbourhood of Crowland and Peterborough, and so
down to the Ouse again at Earith, Aldreth, and Stretham Bridge. It is
still a political division, and has its own government, under the style
of the County Council of the Isle of Ely. The real geographical Isle—
the one sketched in the map—is much smaller; only one-third the
size of the other; measuring in its greatest length and breadth but
some twelve and eight miles, and bounded by the Great Ouse from
Earith to Upware, by Cam and Little Ouse to Littleport, and thence
by the Old Croft River to the New Bedford River, returning along that
cut to Earith.
As you approach Stretham Bridge along this old causeway the Isle is
plain to see in front, its gentle hills glimpsed between the fringe of
willows and poplars that now begin to line the way. No one has
bettered the description Carlyle wrote of the Fen-country seen from
this causeway that was once the Akeman Street; and no one can
better it. "It has a clammy look," he says, clayey and boggy; the
produce of it, whether bushes and trees or grass and crops, gives
you the notion of something lazy, dropsical, gross. From the
"circumfluent mud," willows, "Nature's signals of distress," spring up
by every still slime-covered drain: willows generally polled and, with
that process long continued, now presenting a very odd and weird
appearance. The polled crown of an ancient willow bears a singularly
close resemblance to a knuckly fist, and these, like so many gnarled
giant arms of bogged and smothered Goliaths thrust upwards in
despair, with clenched and imprecatory hands, give this road the
likeness of a highway into fairyland whose ogres, under the spell of
some Prince Charming, have been done to death in their own
sloughs. Pollards, anathema to Cobbett, are in plenty in these
lowlands, but it must not be thought that because of them, or even
because Carlyle's description of the country is so apt, it is anything
but beautiful. Only, to see its beauties and appreciate them, it is
necessary here, more than elsewhere, to have fine weather.

A FENLAND ROAD: THE AKEMAN STREET NEAR STRETHAM BRIDGE.

Stretham Bridge, that makes so great a business of crossing the

Ouse, seems an instance of much ado about nothing, for that river,
"Great Ouse" though it be named, is very much to seek in summer,
trickling away as it does between tussocks of rough grass. The Great
Ouse is not of the bigness it once boasted, in days before the Old
and New Bedford Rivers were cut, two hundred and sixty years ago,
to carry its sluggish waters away by a direct route to the sea, and
the fair-weather pilgrim marvels at the bridge and at the great banks
he sees stretching away along its course to protect the surrounding
lands from being flooded. That they are needed is evident enough
from the care taken to repair them, and from a sight of the men
digging hard by in the greasy gault to obtain the repairing materials.
These are the "gaulters" and the "bankers" of Fenland life. It was
one of these who, as a witness in some cause at the Cambridge
Assizes, appearing in his working clothes, was asked his occupation.
"I am a banker, my Lord," he replied. "We cannot have any
absurdity," said Baron Alderson testily; to which the man answered
as before, "I am a banker"; and things were at cross-purposes until
the meaning of the term was explained to the Court.
The local occupations all have curious names,
and the inhabitants of the Fens in general
were long known as "Fen-slodgers," a title
that, if indeed unlovely, is at least as
expressive of mudlarking as it is possible for a
word to be. You picture a slodger as a half-
amphibious creature, something between a
water-sprite and a sewer-man, muddy from
HODDEN SPADE AND head to foot and pulling his feet out of the
BECKET.
ooze as he goes with resounding "plops," like
the noise made in drawing the cork of a
bottle. But if the Fenman did not quite fill all the details thus
conjured up, he was, and is still, a watery kind of creature; half-
farmer, half-fisherman and wild-fowler. He is sometimes a "gozard,"
that is to say, a goose-ward or goose-keeper. This occupation does
not seem to have given an abiding surname, as many others have
done, and you may search in many directories for it without avail,
although the Haywards, the Cartwrights, and the Cowards are
prominent enough. The Fenman digs his land with a becket or a
hodden spade. The design of the first-named goes back to Roman
times, and is seen figured on columns and triumphal arches in the
Imperial City, just as it is fashioned to-day. It is this form of spade
that is alluded to in such wayside tavern-signs as the Plough and
Becket, apt to be puzzling to the uninitiated. When the Fenland
rustic, weary of the daily routine, wants a little sport or seeks to
grace his table with fish, he goes "dagging for eels" along the rivers
and the drains, "leams," "lodes," or "eaus" (which he calls "ees")
with a "gleve," which, translated into ordinary English, means an eel-
spear, shaped very like Neptune's trident.

STRETHAM BRIDGE.
 XXXVIII
Crossing Stretham Bridge, with Stretham Common on the right and
Stretham village two miles ahead, the Akeman Street appears to be
soon lost, for the way is crooked, and much more like a mediæval
than a classic road. Indeed, the entrance to Stretham is by two
striking right-angle turns and a curve past a low-lying tract called
Beggars' Bush Field.
"Beggars' Bush" is so frequent a name in rural England[2] that it
arouses curiosity. Sometimes these spots bear the unbeautiful name
of "Lousy Bush," as an apt alternative. They were probably the
lurking-places of mediæval tramps. The tramp we have always had
with us. He, his uncleanliness and his dislike of work are by no
means new features. Only, with the increase of population, there is
naturally a proportional increase in the born-tired and the
professional unemployed. That is all. So long ago as Queen
Elizabeth's time legislation was found necessary to suppress the
tramp. The Elizabethan statute did not call him by that name: they
were not clever enough in those times to invent so descriptive a
term, and merely called him a "sturdy rogue and vagrant." Of course
he was not suppressed by the hardness, the whips and scorpions, of
the Elizabethans, but endured them and the branded "R" and "V,"
and sporting them as his trade-marks, went tramping to the end of
his earthly pilgrimage. These are the "strangers" whom you will find
mentioned in the burial registers of many a wayside parish church;
the "strangers" found dead on the road, or under the "Beggars'
Bushes," and buried by the parish.
[2] There was once a Beggars' Bush on the Old North Road, fifty-
five miles from London and two and a half from Huntingdon. King
James the First seems to have heard of it, when on his progress
to London from Scotland, for he said, on the road, in a
metaphorical sense to Bacon, who had entertained him with a
lavish and ruinous hospitality, "Sir Francis, you will soon come to
 Beggars' Bush, and I may e'en go along with you too, if we be
both so bountiful."
It was the indiscriminate almsgiving of the religious houses—the
Abbeys and the Priories of old—that fostered this race of vagrom
men and women, the ancestors of the tramps of to-day. Like the
Salvation Army in our times,—either better or worse, whichever way
you regard it,—they fed, and sometimes sheltered, the outcast and
the hungry. Only the hungry are not fed for nothing, nor without
payment sheltered by the Salvationists. They purchase food and
lodging off the Army for a trifle in coin or by a job of work: the
monks exacted nothing in return for the dole or the straw pallet that
any hungry wretch was welcome to. Thus, throughout the land a
great army of the lazy, the unfortunate, and the afflicted were in
mediæval times continually tramping from one Abbey to another.
Sometimes they stole, oftener they begged, and they found the
many pilgrims who were always making pilgrimage from one shrine
to another handy to prey upon. Ill fared the straggler from the
pilgrim train that wound its length along the ancient ways; for there
were those among the vagrom gang who would not scruple to rob or
murder him, and that is one among many reasons why pilgrimage
was made in company.
Stretham village, it is scarce necessary in these parts to say, is set
on a hill, or what in the Fens is by courtesy so-called. No village here
has any other site than some prehistoric knob of clay that by strange
chance raised itself above the ooze. The site of Stretham, being in
the Isle of Ely, was an isle within an isle. Still one goes up to and
down from it. Still you see ancient houses there with flights of steps
up to the front doors, so hard put to it were the old inhabitants to
keep out of the way of the water; and even yet, when you are come
to the levels again, the houses cease and no more are seen until the
next rise is reached, insignificant enough to the eye, but to the mind
stored with the old lore of the Fens significant of much. Stretham is
a large village. It does not run to length, as do places in other parts
of the country situated, like it, on a great road. They commonly
consist of one long street: Stretham, built on the crown of a hill, has
odd turns and twists, and streets unexpectedly opening on either
hand as the explorer advances, and is, so to speak, built round and
round itself. In its midst, where the road broadens into as wide a
space as a village squeezed on to the crown of an island hilltop
could anciently afford, stands a market cross.
You may seek far and wide for information about this cross, but you
will not find. All we know is that, by its look, it belongs to the
fifteenth century, and we may shrewdly suspect that the nondescript
plinth it stands upon replaces a broad approach of steps. When the
steps were taken away is a matter as unknown as the history of the
cross itself; but if we do not know the when, we at least, in the light
of Stretham's circumstances, know the why. The street was
inconveniently narrowed by them.

STRETHAM.

The fine church stands to the left of the road by the cross, and is
adjoined by an ancient vicarage. At the top of the main street,
where the village ends, the traveller obtains his first glimpse of Ely
Cathedral, four miles away. It must have been here, or close by, that
Jack Goodwin, guard on the Lynn "Rover," about 1831, met Calcraft
the hangman, for he tells how the executioner got up as an outside
passenger "about four miles on the London side of Ely," to which city
he had been paying a professional visit, to turn off an unhappy
agricultural labourer sentenced to death for incendiarism, then a
capital offence. Calcraft had been at considerable pains to avoid
recognition, and had appeared in the procession to the scaffold on
Ely Common as one of the Sheriff's javelin-men. Probably he feared
to be the object of popular execration.
When he mounted the coach, he was dressed like a Cambridgeshire
farmer, and thought himself quite unknown. Goodwin took charge of
his baggage, comprising a blue bag, half a dozen red cabbages, and
a piece of rope—the identical rope that had put an end to the
unhappy wretch of the day before. He then offered him a cigar
(guards were fine fellows in their way) and addressed Calcraft by
name.
The hangman replied that he was mistaken. "No, no," said Goodwin,
"I am not; I saw you perform on three criminals at the Old Bailey a
few weeks ago."
That, of course, was conclusive, and they chatted more or less
pleasantly; although, to be sure, the conversation chiefly turned on
Mr. Calcraft's professional experiences. He told Goodwin, when he
left, that "if ever he had the pleasure of doing the job for him, he
would soap the rope to make it as comfortable as possible."
 XXXIX
There is little or nothing to say of the way into Ely, and only the little
village of Thetford, and that to one side of the road, intervenes.
Nothing distracts the attention from the giant bulk of the Cathedral.
How shall we come into Ely? As archæologists, as pilgrims spiritually
inclined and chanting a sursum corda as we go, or shall we be gross
and earthly, scenting lamb and green peas, spring duckling and
asparagus from afar, for all the world like our hearty grandfathers of
the coaching age, to whom the great white-faced Lamb Inn, that is
still the principal hostelry of this city, appealed with much more force
than that great grey religious pile? We will to the Lamb, which is not
a difficult house to find, and in fact presents itself squarely and
boldly as you enter. "Come," it seems to say, "you are expected. The
cloth is laid, you shall dine royally on Ely delicacies. This is in no
traditional way the capital of the Fens. Our ducklings are the
tenderest, our asparagus the most succulent, there never were such
eels as those of Ouse; and you shall conclude with the cream-cheese
of Cottenham." Is an invitation so alluring to be despised?
It is strange to read how Thomas Cross in his Autobiography of a
Stage Coachman devotes pages to an elaborate depreciation of the
Lamb in coaching times. From a "slip of a bar," with a netful of
mouldy lemons hanging from the ceiling, to the catering and the
appointments of the hostelry, he finds nothing good. But who shall
say he was not justified? Lounging one day in this apology for a bar,
there entered one who was a stranger to him, who asked the
landlady what he could have for dinner. "Spitchcocked eels and
mutton chops," replied the hostess, naming what were then, and are
still, the staple commodities. The stranger was indignant. Turning to
Cross, he said, "I have used this house for five-and-twenty years and
never had any other answer."
Presently they both sat down to this canonical dinner in a sparsely-
furnished room. The stranger cleaned his knife and fork (brought
into the room in a dirty condition) by thrusting them through the
soiled and ragged tablecloth. The sherry was fiery, if the port was
good; and for gooseberry tart they had a something in a shallow
dish, with twenty bottled gooseberries under the crust. The good
cheer of the Lamb was then, it seems quite evident, a matter of
conventional belief rather than of actual existence.
It has been already said that nothing distracts the attention of the
traveller on approaching the city. Ely, indeed, is nearly all Cathedral,
and very little of that which is not can claim any interest. It is true
that six thousand five hundred people live in Ely, but the figures are
surprising. Where do these thousands hide themselves? The streets
are not so many, and even at that are all emptiness, slumber, and
yawns. The shopkeepers (who surely keep shop for fun) come to
their doors and yawn, and regard the stray customer with severity;
the Divinity students yawn, and the Dean and the Cathedral staff
yawn horribly at the service they have gone through so many times
and know by heart. The only place where they don't yawn is the
railway station, down below by the Ouse, by whose banks you get
quite the finest near view of the Cathedral. Ely, in short, lives chiefly
by and on the Cathedral. If there had never been a cathedral here, it
would have been a village the size of Stretham. Perhaps to that size
it will even yet decline.
"Ely," wrote Cobbett eighty years ago, "is what one may call a
miserable little town; very prettily situated, but poor and mean.
Everything seems to be on the decline, as, indeed, is the case
everywhere where the clergy are masters." True enough, enterprise
and industry are deadened in all such places; but this bull-headed
old prevaricator, in proceeding to account for the decay, furiously
assaults the Protestant religion, and pretends to find it responsible.
It is true that the cleric is everywhere a brake on the wheels of
progress, but what religion plunges its adherents in so abject a
condition of superstitious dependence as the Roman Catholic creed?
Cobbett on Ely is, in short, a monument of blundering clap-trap.
"Arrived at Ely," he says, "I first walked round the beautiful
cathedral, that honour to our Catholic forefathers and that standing
disgrace to our Protestant selves. It is impossible to look at that
magnificent pile without feeling that we are a fallen race of men.
You have only to open your eyes to be convinced that England must
have been a far greater and more wealthy country in those days
than it is in these days. The hundreds of thousands of loads of stone
of which this cathedral and the monasteries in the neighbourhood
were built must all have been brought by sea from distant parts of
the kingdom.[3] These foundations were laid more than a thousand
years ago; and yet there are vagabonds who have the impudence to
say that it is the Protestant religion that has made England a great
country."
[3] The stone really came from Barnack, in Northamptonshire,
thirty-five miles distant.

Here we have Cobbett, who ought to have known better, and did
actually know, repeating the shambling fallacy that the architectural
art of the Middle Ages was so artistic because it was inspired by
religion, and that its artistry decayed by consequence of the
Reformation. Such an argument loses sight of the circumstance that
edifices dedicated to religious use were not the only large or
beautiful buildings erected in those ages, and that those who
wrought upon secular castle or manor-house wrought as well and as
truly as those who reared the soaring minster or noble abbey. And
whence came the means wherewith to build cathedrals like this of
Ely? Did they not derive from the lands settled upon monasteries by
those anxious only to save their own souls, and by others who
sought thus to compound for their deeds of blood or infamy? And is
it possible to think without aversion of a Church that, accepting such
gifts, absolved the givers in consideration of them?
Life is endeavour; not all cloistered prayer. He prays best whose
prayers are an interlude of toil; and so, when we read Cobbett's long
account of the wretched condition of Ely Cathedral, of its
"disgraceful irrepair and disfigurement," and of the two old men who
on a week-day afternoon formed the whole of the congregation,
coupled with his regretful surmise that in Catholic times five
thousand people would have been assembled here, we are apt to
think that sparse congregation a very healthy sign, and that even
those two old men would have been better employed out in the
workaday world. He would be a Goth who should fail to perceive the
beauty of Ely Cathedral and of its like, but those noble aisles, those
soaring towers tell a tale of an enslaved land, of fettered souls, of a
priestcraft that sought to rule the State, as well as to hold the keys
of Heaven and of Hell. No man, whether he be Pope, Archbishop, or
merely the Boanerges of some hideous Bethel, has the right to
enslave another's soul. Let even the lovely cathedrals of our land be
levelled in one common ruin if the sight of them harks us back to
Popery, for in that harking back England would be utterly undone.
But since the saving common-sense of the Englishman can never
again permit him to deliver up his soul into another's keeping, and
since it follows naturally from this that the Romanising tendencies of
our clergy must of necessity lead nowhere and bear no fruit, it
becomes possible to look with a dispassionate eye upon these
architectural relics of discredited beliefs.
Why was the Cathedral built here? That is a long story. It originated
in the monastery founded on this spot in A.D. 673 by Etheldreda,
daughter of Auna, King of the East Angles. Etheldreda has long since
been canonised, and it behoves us to deal as gently as may be with
a saint; but she was, if the chroniclers tell truth, an eccentric and
original creature, twice wed by her own consent, and yet vowed to a
life-long chastity. Her first husband was one Tondbert, a kinglet of
the Gyrvians or Fen-folk, a monarch of the mudlarks, ruling over
many miles of reed and sedge, in whose wastes Ely was centred. He
gave his Queen this Isle, and died. For five years she remained a
widow and then married again; this time a sturdier and less
manageable man, King Egfrid of Northumbria. He respected her
vows for twelve years, but when at last she took the veil in the north
of England and fled from her Northumbrian home he took the only
way open in the seventh century of asserting conjugal rights, and
pursued her with an armed force. When, however, he arrived at the
monastery of Coldingham she was gone, and I do not think Egfrid
ever saw her again, or wanted to, for that matter. We will not follow
Etheldreda in her long and adventurous journey to Ely, whither she
had fled, nor recount the many miracles that helped her on the way.
Miracles were cheap at that period, and for at least four hundred
years to come were freely invented and elaborated by monkish
chroniclers, who were the earliest novelists and writers of fairy tales,
in the scriptorium of many a monastery.
 XL
In the year 673, then, behold the ecstatic Etheldreda come out of
many perils to Ely. Here, where she thought the Isle lifted its crest
highest above the waters, she founded a mixed monastery for
monks and nuns. At this point the ground is one hundred and nine
feet above sea-level: at Haddenham, the crowning crest is but
thirteen feet higher. Here she ruled as Abbess for six years, when
she died, and was succeeded by her sister, the sainted Sexburga. It
was Sexburga who, sixteen years from this time, determined to
honour Etheldreda to the best of her ability, bethought her of
translating the body from the humble graveyard of the monastery to
the church itself. She sent forth a number of the brethren on a
roving commission to find a block of stone for a coffin, and as stone
of any kind is the least likely thing to find for many miles around Ely,
theirs looked to be a long and difficult quest. They had, indeed,
wandered as far as the ruins of Roman Cambridge before they
discovered anything, but there they found a magnificent
sarcophagus of white marble, which they joyfully brought back, and
in it the remains of Etheldreda, entire and incorrupt, were laid.
In 870, the time of the fourth Abbess, St. Withburga, a great
disaster befell the monastery of Ely. For years past the terror of the
heathen Vikings, the ruthless Danes and Jutes from over sea, had
been growing. Wild-eyed fugitives, survivors of some pitiless
massacre of the coastwise settlements by these pirates, had flung
themselves, exhausted, upon the Isle, and now the peril was
drawing near to this sanctuary. A special intercession, "Deliver us, O
Lord, from the Northmen," distinguished morning and evening office,
but the prayer was unanswered. Presently along the creeks came
the beaked prows of the ruthless sea-rovers, and the monastery was
sacked and burnt and all upon the Isle slain. That is history. To it the
old chronicler must needs put a clinching touch of miraculous
vengeance, and tells how a bloodstained pirate, thinking the marble
shrine of St. Etheldreda to be a treasure-chest, burst it open. "When
he had done this there was no delay of Divine vengeance, for
immediately his eyes started miraculously from his head, and he
ended there and then his sacrilegious life."
Before many years had passed, a new monastery was founded upon
the blackened and bloodstained ruins of the old. This was a College
of Secular Clergy, patronised by King Alfred. It was succeeded by a
new foundation, instituted by Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, who
made it a Benedictine House; but even of that we have no trace left,
and the church under whose roof Canute worshipped and Edward
the Confessor was educated was swept away in the great scheme of
rebuilding, entered upon by Simeon, the first Norman Abbot, in
1080. Twenty-six years later the relics of St. Etheldreda were
translated to the choir just completed. The translation took place on
October 17th, a day ever afterwards, while the Roman Catholic
religion prevailed, celebrated by a religious festival and a secular fair.
Pilgrims flocked throughout the year to St. Audrey's shrine, but
many thousands assembled on her feast-day, and, that no doubt
should rest upon their pilgrimage, purchased such favours and
tokens as "St. Audrey's chains," and images of her. The chains were
lengths of coloured silks and laces, and were, like most articles sold
at the stalls, cheap and common. From them, their vulgar
showiness, and their association with the Saint, comes the word
"tawdry."
Two years after this translation of St. Audrey, the Abbey Church was
made the Cathedral of the new diocese of Ely, carved out of the vast
See of Lincoln. Of the work wrought by Abbot Simeon and his
successor, Richard, the great north and south transepts alone
remain. The choir they built was replaced in the thirteenth century
by that lovely Early English work we now see; the nave they had not
reached. This is a work of some sixty years later than their time, and
is one of the finest examples of late Norman architecture in the
country. The Norman style went out with a blaze of architectural
splendour at Ely, where the great west front shows it blending
almost imperceptibly into Early English. It is a singular architectural
composition, this western entrance and forefront of Ely Cathedral;
the piling up to a dizzy height of a great tower, intended to be
flanked on either side by two western transepts each ending in a
smaller tower. The north-western transept fell in ruins at some
unknown period and has never been rebuilt, so that a view of this
front presents a curiously unbalanced look, very distressing to all
those good folk whose sensibilities would be harrowed if in their
domestic establishment they lacked a pendant to everything. To the
housewife to whom a fender where the poker is not duly and
canonically neighboured by the tongs looks a debauched and sinful
object; to the citizen who would grieve if the bronze or cut-glass
lustre on one side of his mantel-shelf were not matched on the
other, this is a sight of the most dolorous sort. It must have been to
soothe the feelings of all such that a sum of £25,000 was appealed
for when Sir Gilbert Scott was restoring the Cathedral, many years
ago, and its rebuilding was proposed. The money was not
forthcoming, the work was not done, and so Scott did not obtain the
£2500 commission. Scott's loss is our gain, for we are spared one
more example of his way with old cathedrals.
 THE WEST FRONT, ELY CATHEDRAL.

The ruins of the missing transept are plain to see, and a huge and
ugly buttress props up the tower from this side; but, were that
building restored, we should only have again, in its completeness, a
curiously childish design. For that is the note of this west front and
of this great tower, rising in stage upon stage of masonry until the
great blocks of stone, dwarfed by distance, look like so many
courses of grey brick. So does a child build up towers and castles of
wooden blocks.
We must, however, not accuse the original designers of the tower of
this mere striving after enormous height. The uppermost stage,
where the square building takes an octagonal form, is an addition of
nearly two hundred years later, when the nice perceptions and
exquisite taste of an earlier period were lost, and size was the goal
of effort, rather than beauty. Those who built at that later time
would have gone higher had they dared, but if they lacked
something as artists, they must at least be credited with engineering
knowledge. They knew that the mere crushing weight of stone upon
stone would, if further added to, grind the lower stages into powder
and so wreck the whole fabric. So, at a height of two hundred and
fifteen feet, they stayed their hands; but, in earnest of what they
would have done, had not prudence forbade, they crowned the
topmost battlements with a tall light wooden spire, removed a
century ago in one of the restorations. It was from the roof of this
tower, in 1845, that Basevi, an architect interested in a restoration
then in progress, fell and was killed.
The octagonal upper stage of this great western tower was added in
the Decorated period, about 1350, when the great central octagon,
the most outstanding and peculiar feature of the Cathedral, was
built. Any distant view of this vast building that commands its full
length shows, in addition to the western tower, a light and fairylike
lantern, like some graceful coronet, midway of the long roof-ridge,
where choir and nave meet. This was built to replace the tall central
tower that suddenly fell in ruins in 1332 and destroyed much of the
choir. To an architect inspired far above his fellows fell the task of
rebuilding. There are two works among the whole range of ancient
Gothic art in these islands that stand out above and beyond the rest
and proclaim the hand and brain of genius. They are the west front
of Peterborough Cathedral and the octagonal lantern of Ely. We do
not know who designed Peterborough's daring arcaded front, but the
name of that resourceful man who built the great feature of Ely has
been preserved. He was Alan of Walsingham, the sacrist and sub-
prior of the monastery. He did not build it in that conventional and
deceitful sense we are accustomed to when we read that this or that
mediæval Abbot or Bishop built one thing or another, the real
meaning of the phrase being that they provided the money and were
anything and everything but the architects. No: he imagined it; the
idea sprang from his brain, his hands drew the plans, he made it
grow and watched it to its completion.
No man dared rebuild the tower that had fallen; not even Alan, or
perhaps he did not want to, being possessed, as we may well
believe, by this Idea. What it was you shall hear, although, to be
sure, no words have any power to picture to those who have not
seen it what this great and original work is like. The fallen tower had
been reared, as is the manner of such central towers, upon four
great pillars where nave and choir and transepts met. Alan cleared
the ruins of them away, and built in their stead a circle of eight stone
columns that not only took in the width of nave and the central
alleys and transepts and choir that had been enclosed by the fallen
pillars, but spread out beyond it to the whole width of nave aisles
and the side aisles of choir and transepts. This group of columns
carries arches and a masonry wall rising in octagonal form above the
roofs, and crowned by the timber structure of the lantern itself. The
interior view of this lantern shows a number of vaulting ribs of
timber spreading inwards from these columns, and supporting a
whole maze of open timber-work pierced with great traceried
windows and fretted and carved to wonderment. The effect is as
that of a dome, "the only Gothic dome in the world" as it has been
said. How truly it is a "lantern" may be seen when the sun shines
through the windows and lights up the central space in the great
church below. Puritan fury did much to injure this beautiful work,
and its niches and tabernacles, once filled with Gothic statuary, are
now supplied with modern sculptures, good in intention but a poor
substitute. The modern stained-glass, too, is atrocious.
To fully describe Ely Cathedral in any but an architectural work would
be alike impossible and unprofitable, and it shall not be attempted
here: this giant among English minsters is not easily disposed of. For
it is a giant. Winchester, the longest, measuring from west front to
east wall of its Lady Chapel five hundred and fifty-five feet, is but
eighteen feet longer. Even in that particular, Ely would have excelled
but for the Lady Chapel here being built to one side, instead of at
the end, owing to the necessity that existed for keeping a road open
at the east end of the building.
Like the greater number of English minsters, Ely stands in a grassy
space. A triangular green spreads out in front, with the inevitable
captured Russian gun in the foreground, and the Bishop's Palace on
the right. By turning to the south and passing through an ancient
gateway, once the entrance to the monastery, the so-called "Park" is
entered, the hilly and magnificently wooded southern side of what
would in other cathedral cities be named the "Close," here
technically "the College," and preserving in that title the memory of
the ancient College of Secular Clergy which ruled sometime in that
hundred years between A.D. 870 and 970.
It was from this point of view, near the ancient mound of "Cherry
Hill," the site of William the Conquerors Castle, that Turner painted
his picture. Many remains of the monastic establishment are to be
seen, built into charming and comfortable old houses, residences of
the Cathedral dignitaries. Here are the time-worn Norman pillars and
arches of the Infirmary, and close by is the Deanery, fashioned out
of the ancient thirteenth-century Guesten Hall. Quiet dignity and
repose mark the place; every house has its old garden, and
everyone is very well satisfied with himself. It is a pleasant world for
sleepy shepherds, if a sorry one for the sheep.
 XLI
Let them sleep, for their activity, on any lines that may be predicated
from past conduct, bodes no one good. Times have been when
these shepherds themselves masqueraded as wolves, acting the part
with every convincing circumstance of ferocity. The last of these
occasions was in 1816. I will set forth in detail the doings of that
time, because they are intimately bound up with the story of this
road between Ely and Downham Market.

ELY CATHEDRAL.
[After J. M. W. Turner, R.A.]
It was not until after Waterloo had been fought and Bonaparte at
last imprisoned, like some bottle-imp, at St. Helena, that the full
strain of the past years of war began to be felt in its full severity. It
is true that for years past the distress had been great, and that to
relieve it, and to pay for Imperial needs, the rates and taxes levied
on property had in many places risen to forty and even forty-eight
shillings in the pound, but when military glory had faded and peace
reigned, internal affairs grew more threatening. Trade was bad,
harvests were bad, wheat rose to the unexampled figure of one
hundred and three shillings a quarter, and any save paper money
was scarce. A golden guinea was handled by many with that
curiosity with which one regards some rare and strange object.
Everywhere was the one-pound note, issued for the purposes of
restricting cash payments and restoring credit; but so many banks
issuing one-pound notes failed to meet their obligations that this
medium of exchange was regarded with a very just suspicion, still
echoed in the old song that says—

"I'd rather have a guinea than a one-pound note."

Everyone at this period of national exhaustion was "hard up," but

worse off than any were the unfortunate rural folk—the farm-
labourers and their like.
The agricultural labourer is now an object of solicitude, especially at
election times. There are, in these happy days, always elections;
elections to Parliament, elections to parish and other councils,
always someone to be elected to something, and as our friend
Hodge has oftentimes a vote to give his best friend, his welfare is
greatly desired. But at this unhappy time of which we have been
speaking, Hodge had no vote and, by consequence, no friends. His
wages, when he could get any work, ranged from seven to nine
shillings a week, and the quartern loaf cost one shilling and
sixpence. Tea was eight shillings a pound, sugar one shilling, and
other necessaries at famine prices. How, then, did Hodge live? It is a
difficult question to answer. In many cases the parish made him an
allowance in augmentation of wages, but it need scarce be added
that this extraordinary system did not help him much. Indeed, the
odd idea of financially relieving a man in work tended directly to
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebookfinal.com