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Thomas Mailund

Introducing Markdown and Pandoc

Using Markup Language and Document Converter
Thomas Mailund
Aarhus N, Denmark

Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the

author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via the book’s
product page, located at www.​apress.​com/​9781484251485 . For more
detailed information, please visit http://​www.​apress.​com/​source-code
.

ISBN 978-1-4842-5148-5 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-5149-2

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5149-2

© Thomas Mailund 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the

Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned,
specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other
physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.

Trademarked names, logos, and images may appear in this book.

Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a
trademarked name, logo, or image we use the names, logos, and images
only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner,
with no intention of infringement of the trademark. The use in this
publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar
terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an
expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to
proprietary rights.
While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true
and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the
editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1:​The Beginner’s Guide to Markdown and Pandoc
Chapter 2:​Why Use Markdown and Pandoc
Separating Semantics from Formatting
Preprocessing Documents
Why Markdown?​
Why Pandoc?​
Chapter 3:​Writing Markdown
Sections
Emphasis
Lists
Block Quotes
Verbatim Text
Links
Images
Exercises
Sections
Emphasis
Lists
Block Quotes
Links
Images
Chapter 4:​Pandoc Markdown Extensions
Lists
Tables
Smart Punctuation
 Footnotes
Exercises
Lists
Tables
Footnotes
Chapter 5:​Translating Documents
Formatting a Markdown Document with Pandoc
Frequently Useful Options
Sections and Chapters
Table of Contents
Image Extensions
Ebook Covers
Using Makefiles
Chapter 6:​Math and Computer Programming Languages
Writing Math
Writing Code Blocks
Code Block Options
Syntax Highlighting Styles
Exercises
Code blocks
Code Block Options
Syntax Highlighting
Chapter 7:​Cross-referencing
Referencing Sections
Reference Prefixes
Referencing Figures, Tables, and Equations
 Bibliographies
Exercises
Reference Sections
Figures, Tables, and Equations
Bibliographies
Chapter 8:​Metadata
YAML for metadata
Chapter 9:​Using Templates
Writing Your Own Templates
Template Examples
Exercises
Chapter 10:​Preprocessing
Examples
Including Files
Conditional Inclusion
Running Code
Exercises
Chapter 11:​Filters
Exploring Panflute
Conditional Inclusion of Exercise Solutions
Conditional Inclusions Based on Format
Evaluating Code
Numbering Exercises
Exercises
Conditional Inclusion
Conditional on Output
 Evaluating Code
Numbering Exercises
Chapter 12:​Conclusions
Index
About the Author and About the Technical
Reviewer

About the Author

Thomas Mailund
is an associate professor in bioinformatics at Aarhus University,
Denmark. He has a background in math and computer science. For the
past decade, his main focus has been on genetics and evolutionary
studies, particularly comparative genomics, speciation, and gene flow
between emerging species. He has published R Data Science Quick
Reference , The Joys of Hashing , Domain-Specific Languages in R ,
Beginning Data Science in R , Functional Programming in R , and
Metaprogramming in R , all from Apress, as well as other books.

About the Technical Reviewer

Germán González-Morris
is a polyglot software architect/engineer with 20+ years in the field,
with knowledge in Java(EE), Spring, Haskell, C, Python, and Javascript,
among others. He works with web distributed applications. Germán
loves math puzzles (including reading Knuth) and swimming. He has
tech-reviewed several books, including an application container book
(Weblogic), as well as titles covering various programming languages
(Haskell, Typescript, WebAssembly, Math for coders, and regexp). You
can find more details at his blog site (
https://devwebcl.blogspot.com/ ) or twitter account
(@devwebcl ).
© Thomas Mailund 2019
T. Mailund, Introducing Markdown and Pandoc
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5149-2_1

1. The Beginner’s Guide to Markdown

and Pandoc
Thomas Mailund1

(1) Aarhus N, Denmark

Markdown is a markup language. The name is a pun, but where the

humor might be atrocious, the language is not. The Markdown
language lets you write plain text documents with a few lightweight
annotations that specify how you want the document formatted. Such
annotations are the defining characteristics of a markup language.
Markup languages separate the semantic or content part of a document
from the formatting of said document. The content of a document is
the text, what should be headers, what should be emphasized, and so
on. The formatting specifies the font and font size, whether headers
should be numbered, and so on.
Markup languages have a stronger focus on semantic information
than direct formatting as you would do with WYSIWYG (what you see is
what you get) formatting. With markup languages, you might annotate
your text with information about where chapters and sections start,
but not how chapter and heading captions should be formatted.
Decoupling the structure of a text from how it is visualized makes it
easier for you to produce different kinds of output. The same text can
easily be transformed into HTML, PDF, or Word documents by tools
that understand the markup annotations. And because writing the text
and formatting it are separate steps, you can apply one or more text
documents to the same transformation program to get a consistent
look for related documents, or you can transform the same document
into multiple output formats so the same document can be put on a
web page or in a printed book, for example. Most WYSIWYG editors can
export to different formats, but they usually do not let you output to
the same document type with different formatting, for example, output
PDF files in A4, 6˝ x 9˝, and 7˝ x 10˝ with point size 11 in the first two
and 12 in the last. With a Markup language, this is relatively easy.
Among markup languages, Markdown is one of, if not the, simplest.
The annotations you add to a text are minimal, and most likely you will
already have seen most of them if you occasionally use plain text files.
For example, where you would use italic or boldface in Word, you
would write *italic* and **boldface** in Markdown, and most likely you
have seen this notation before. In my misspelled youth, I frequently
used TeX/LaTeX and HTM-L/SGML/XML. I know people who cannot
concentrate on the text body if it is full of markup information. With
Markdown, the markup annotation is almost invisible, and they have
no problem working with that. With Markdown you can generate
documents in other markup languages, so you do not need to know
them. If you want the full power to format your documents the way you
want them, then I still recommend that you learn the other languages.
You can use that knowledge to create templates (see Chapter 9), and
then you only need to use, for example, LaTeX or HTML when writing
the templates. You can then still keep your document in Markdown. One
exception, where you still want to use LaTeX, is if you need to write
math in your document. Then you need to write it in LaTeX; see
Chapter 6.
You need a program for translating Markdown into other file
formats. The tool I will use in this book is Pandoc. Pandoc supports
basic Markdown and several different extensions. It also lets you define
templates and stylesheets to customize the transformed files. Pandoc
can do more than translate Markdown files into different output files. It
can translate from and to several different formats. I will only describe
how you translate from Markdown to other formats. If you have an
existing text in Word, for example, and you want to try out Markdown
by editing that document, then you should be able to generate a
Markdown file from the Word file, edit the Markdown format, and then
translate the Markdown document back to Word.
© Thomas Mailund 2019
T. Mailund, Introducing Markdown and Pandoc
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5149-2_2

2. Why Use Markdown and Pandoc

Thomas Mailund1

(1) Aarhus N, Denmark

If you are used to WYSIWYG editors such as Microsoft Word, you might
reasonably ask why you should use Markdown files. You can write your
document and format them any way you like, and you can export your
document to different file formats if you wish. For short documents
that you only need to format once and to one file format, you do not
need Markdown. I will argue that Markdown is still an excellent choice
for such documents, but it is for more advanced applications where it
really shines.
For applications that are just as easy to handle with a WYSIWYG
editor, plain text can be a better choice in situations where you need to
share documents with others. A de facto file format for this is Word
files, but not everyone has Word. I don’t. I can import Word files into
Pages, which I have, and export to Word, but I don’t know what that
does to the formatting. Everyone has an editor that can work on plain
files, and with a plain text file, you know exactly what you are editing. If
the text and the formatting are separated, then someone with more
artistic skills can handle the formatting while I can write the text. One
argument for Word might be tracking of changes. This is an important
feature, but with plain text files, you can put them under real version
control, for example, GitHub, and that is superior to version tracking.
If you need your document in different formats, for example, you
might need to include your text in a printed progress report and also
have it on a web site, then you can export the document to as many file
formats as you need. If you need different typography for the different
file formats, you might have to do substantial manual work. You might
need to change all the document styles by hand, and in the numerous
occasions where you need to make changes to your text, you need to
change the styles for each file format more than once. If you separate
style and text, you avoid this problem altogether.
Using a markup language to annotate your text makes it easier for
you to distinguish between the semantic structure of a document and
how it is formatted. In the Markdown document, you markup where
headers and lists are, for example, but not how these should be
formatted in the final output. The formatting styles are held in different
files and you can easily transform your Markdown input into all the
output file formats and styles you need. Furthermore, someone else
can work on the style specification while you concentrate on the text.
Your Markdown doesn’t have to be in a single file either. You can split it
into as many as you want, and then different authors can work on
separate pieces of the text without worrying about how to merge files
afterward. With version control, you can even work on the same file in
parallel up to a point.

Separating Semantics from Formatting

Most documents have a semantic structure. Texts consist of chapters
and sections, plain text and emphasized text, figures and citations,
quotes, and lists. When we read a document, these semantic elements
are visualized by different fonts, bold and italic text, different font
sizes, and we do not directly see the semantic structure. Because we
don’t immediately see the structure, it is easy to forget that it is there.
Most word processors separate semantics from formatting. If you
take care to use the formatting section when working on a Word
document, then the semantic information needed to change styles, that
is, the visual representation of all semantic units (e.g., headings) is
readily available. Separating the semantics of a document from its
formatting is not an exclusive property of markup languages. However,
when the separation of text and semantics is not enforced, there is a
potential for error. If you decide to change the font size of level-two
section headers, for example, you can easily do this, but you can equally
easy highlight a single section header and reformat that, changing only
that single header. That makes this particular header different from all
the rest, and if you later modify the formatting of level-two headers,
you won’t be changing this one header. Great if this is on purpose; not
great if this is not what you wanted.
With WYSIWYG editors, you can separate semantics from
formatting, but it is easy to break this separation. With markup
languages, you can also define some text elements as special and their
format different from related items, but you have to do this explicitly
so you cannot easily do this by mistake. Keeping the core text
consisting of semantic elements and separate from formatting is vital
in many situations. If you want to translate your text into both paper
documents and web pages, you typically want the format to be
different in the two resulting documents. If the core text only contains
the semantic structure, this is quickly done, by having a different
mapping from semantic elements to formatting information, typically
called templates or stylesheets (see Chapter 9). With different
stylesheets for different output formats, the formatting is tied to the
output text rather than the input text (see Figure 2-1).

Figure 2-1 You can translate the text in multiple documents, or multiple chapters
that should be merged into a single document. You combine these with templates for
formatting the documents, and using Pandoc you can combine it all to produce the
documents you want.
Explicitly representing the semantic elements in the text, rather
than implicitly through how the text is formatted, is also essential if
you want to automatically make a table of contents or lists of figures
and tables. If all sections are marked up explicitly as sections, with
headers at different section levels, any tool can scan your document
and identify these. If the tools had to guess at the semantic meaning of
text elements, based on how the text was formatted, this would be a
much harder task.
Using WYSIWYG word processors doesn’t prevent you from
structuring your documents as semantic units—they usually support
this—but having an explicit markup language makes it much easier to
enforce.

Preprocessing Documents
If your documents are in plain text, you also get a lot of options for how
to process your document before you format it into a final output.
There are a large number of tools that will work well with plain text and
let you preprocess your documents.
Preprocessing documents often require a few programming skills,
so it might not be the first thing you want to worry about if you are
only interested in writing text, but since the option is there, you can
write your text without worrying about processing it initially, and add
such steps later.
I write a lot about R programming, and in those books, I have a lot of
code examples. Here, I use another preprocessor, one that lets me
evaluate the code when processing the documents so I know that all
the code examples work and so I can get the output of running code
inserted into the documents automatically before I create the output
formats.
Preprocessing your documents adds some complications to how
you format your text, but the complexities are only there when you
need them. If you do not need a preprocessor, then you can ignore that
they exist altogether. If you do need preprocessing, then read Chapter
10.
Why Markdown?
There are many different markup languages you can use. HTML
(hypertext markup language) is used for web pages. TeX and LaTeX are
used for many kinds of text documents but are especially powerful for
typesetting mathematics. Markdown is what we do on in this book.
What makes Markdown particularly pleasant to work with is its
simplicity. In HTML, for example, you need to structure your text using
tags that enclose every paragraph, every header, every list, and so on.
When you edit an HTML document, it is hard to separate the
annotations from just the text you want to write. LaTeX has the same
problem. The annotation of the text can be hard to ignore when you
want to focus on writing.
Worse, if you write your documents in HTML or LaTeX, much of the
text is markup codes that specify the formatting. How much, of course,
depends on your document, but any markup instructions you make can
make the text difficult to read.
Consider this Markdown document:

# This is a level one header

This is a paragraph

## This is a level two header

Here is a paragraph that is followed by

* an unnumbered
* list

1. and a numbered
2. list that is
3. three items long

I hope you will agree that the markups here are minimal and that
they do not get in the way of reading or writing the text.
For comparison, the HTML version of the same text looks like this:
 <h1>This is a level one header</h1>
<p>This is a paragraph</p>
<h2>This is a level two header</h2>
<p>Here is a paragraph that is followed by</p>
<ul>
<li>an unnumbered</li>
<li>list</li>
</ul>
<ol type="1">
<li>and a numbered</li>
<li>list that is</li>
<li>three items long</li>
</ol>
It is not terribly complicated, and after looking at it a bit, you can
certainly follow the structure of a document. It is far from as clean as
the Markdown file.
The LaTeX version is slightly easier to read than the HTML file, but
there are still several formatting instructions that get in the way of just
writing.

\section{This is a level one header}

This is a paragraph

\subsection{This is a level two header}

Here is a paragraph that is followed by

\begin{itemize}
\item an unnumbered
\item list
\end{itemize}

\begin{enumerate}
\item and a numbered
\item list that is
\item three items long
\end{enumerate}
 Markdown is designed so you can annotate your text with semantic
information with little annotation clutter. It is designed such that
reading the input text is almost as easy as reading the formatted text.
With Markdown you don’t have quite the same power to control your
formatting as you do in a language like LaTeX, but the simplicity of
Markdown more than makes up for it.

Why Pandoc?
Since Markdown is just a language for adding structure to a text, it is
not tied to any particular tool. You can use any Markdown-aware
software when you want to process your documents. Many blogging
platforms will let you write your text in Markdown and automatically
format it for you. Translating Markdown into HTML was, after all, one
of the primary motivations for the language. Now, many text editors
also support Markdown and will support formatting in Markdown and
exporting to various file formats, usually with various formatting and
style choices determining what your output files will look like.
If your editor can export to different file formats and in different
styles, then that is obviously the easiest way for you to export your
Markdown text. With Pandoc, however, you have a lot of power over
how your documents should be processed. Pandoc is vastly more
versatile than any Markdown-aware text editor that I am aware of.
If you want to create a simple document with no fluff, it is easy to do
so with Pandoc, but easier to do from inside your editor. Try using
Pandoc for simple cases though, so you get familiar with the tool. When
you get into serious writing, and you want full control of how your final
documents will look, then you need the power of Pandoc. The learning
curve can be steep, but if you are familiar with using Pandoc for simple
documents, then you have a foundation to build on when you explore
advanced features.
© Thomas Mailund 2019
T. Mailund, Introducing Markdown and Pandoc
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5149-2_3

3. Writing Markdown
Thomas Mailund1

(1) Aarhus N, Denmark

If you have used plain text to write and share documents in the past,
then you are likely to be familiar with most Markdown markup
annotations already. Much of the syntax for Markdown is based on how
people have written plain text documents for years. This chapter
covers the basic Markdown annotations, which make up 99% of the
annotations you will use regularly. The notation I present in this
chapter is supported by all Markdown tools (as far as I am aware). The
next chapter covers notation that is not universally supported although
many tools do support the features there. All of them, of course, are
supported by Pandoc.
If you write plain text with no special markup commands, as listed
in the remainder of this chapter, then the result will be plain text in the
output as well. One or more lines of text becomes a paragraph. If you
need to start a new paragraph, then use two new lines, that is, separate
one paragraph from the next with a blank line.

Sections
At the highest level, a text document is composed of its sections.
Sections come at different levels. In a book, the top level might be
chapters, the second level sections within the chapters, and the third
level are subsections within the sections.
To make a new section, you give it a header. The headers start with
a hashtag. Using one hashtag gives you a level-one header, which will
be a chapter in a book or a section in a smaller document. Two
hashtags give you a level-two section, a section if the first level is
chapters or a subsection if the first level is section. The next level
sections have three hashtags, and so on.

# Header level 1
## Header level 2
### Header level 3
For the first two levels, you can alternatively underline the section
titles with = and -, respectively:

Level one header

=================
Level two header
-----------------

Any text you write following a header becomes the body of the
section.
By default the headers are numbered. You can change this using a
template (see Chapter 9) or you can disable numbering on selected
headers by putting “{-}” or “{.unnumbered}” after the header title :

# Unnumbered header {-}

## Another unnumbered header { .unnumbered }

Emphasis
We emphasize part of a text by putting it in italic or boldface. In
Markdown we use asterisks, ∗, to do this. To put a word in italic, we use
one asterisk, and to put it in boldface, we use two.
The preceding section, in Markdown, looks like this:

We emphasise part of a text by putting

it in italic or boldface. In Markdown
we use asterisks, \*, to do this.
To put a word in italic, we use *one*
asterisk and to put it in boldface we
use **two**.
 You will also notice that the first asterisk is escaped using a
backslash. That backslash prevents Markdown from interpreting the
asterisks as the beginning of an italic text.

Lists
You have two kinds of lists : numbered and unnumbered . To create a
numbered list, you put a number, followed by a period, at the start of a
line and write the list item after it. For the next list item, you go to the
next line, add another number, followed by a dot, and write the next
item text. An example could look like this:

1. This is a numbered list.

2. Where this is list item two.
3. And this is list item three.

The result will look like this:

1. This is a numbered list.

2. Where this is list item two.

3. And this is list item three.

The actual numbers are ignored, so you can get the same result if
you wrote:

10. This is a numbered list.

51. Where this is list item two.
42. And this is list item three.

If you want your list items to span multiple lines, you need to indent
the lines following the number, like this :

1. This is a multi-line list item.

This is also part of the list item.
And so is this
2. Here is another one.
 Where this is also part of the list item.
Doing that will give you this list:
1. This is a multi-line list item. This is also part of the list item. And so
is this.

2. Here is another one. Where this is also part of the list item.

For unnumbered lists, you use an asterisk or a dash instead of

numbers; so you can write an unnumbered list like this:

* This is a numbered list

- Where this is list item two
* And this is list item three

This is a numbered list

Where this is list item two
And this is list item three
As you can see, you can mix asterisks and dashes, or stick to any of
the two you prefer. How the list is formatted when you create a
document is determined by the stylesheet and not which symbol you
use to create the list.
If you want to have sublists under a list item, you can do this by
indenting the lines for the sublists. So you can write a list with a sublist
like this :

* This is a top-level list item

* Here is a sublist item
* Here is another
* Now we are at the top level again.

Just add sufficient spaces to put the sub-items under the enclosing
item. The result will look like this:
This is a top-level list item
– Here is a sublist item
– Here is another
 Now we are at the top level again.
When you indent, you need at least four spaces or a tab per level .

Block Quotes
Should you need to add a quote to your text, you put a “>” before the
quoted text.
So you can write:

> This is a blockquote. The blockquote

> can span multiple lines. If you don't
> put any new lines in it, you only
> need to put the ">" at the beginning
> of the line.
> If you want multiple lines where you
> include new lines, you should add
> the ">" to each line.

The result will look like this:

This is a blockquote. The blockquote can span multiple lines. If you
don’t put any new lines in it, you only need to put the “>” at the
beginning of the line. If you want multiple lines where you include
new lines, you should add the “>” to each line.

Verbatim Text
Sometimes, you don’t want any formatting at all of a text; you want to
leave it verbatim as it is. When you want this, you can indent it with a
tab (or four spaces). You can write this:

This will be shown

absolutely verbatim

The result will then look like this:

This will be shown

absolutely verbatim
 Sometimes, you also want to add verbatim text inline in a
paragraph. To achieve this, simply put the verbatim text in backticks.
So you can write 'this' to achieve this.

Links
Markdown was initially written to make it easier to write content for
web pages. Consequently, it has built-in syntax for inserting hypertext
links . These will work both with links to web pages and for cross-
references within your text.
You have two options for specifying a link: you can put the
destination URL where you insert the link, or you can create a label and
map it to the URL so you can refer to the label when you insert a link. To
put the URL where you insert the link, you put the text you want to be
the link in square brackets and the destination URL for the link in
round parentheses right after. You would write a text like this:

This is a link to [my blog]

(http://www.mailund.dk).

This is fine for most cases, but if you have many links in a
paragraph, then the link annotations start interfering with how easy it
is to read the text. Instead, you can give the destinations a shorter
name and put the destination later in the text. To do this, you replace
the round parentheses with square brackets, like this:

This is a link to [my blog][blog].

Then, later in the text, you define what the link should point to like
this:

[blog]: http://www.mailund.dk

You use the same syntax to make hypertext links within your
document . The simplest way to create a link to a section is to leave out
the destination but put the name of the section in square brackets. A
link to this chapter would then be written like this :
 This is a link to the [Writing Markdown]
chapter.
This, of course, will not work if you want the link to contain a
different text than the section name, or if you have several sections
with the same name. You can work around this by giving the section
headers explicit labels. These, you put in curly brackets after the
section header. You can assign a label to a header like this:

# My header {#header}

The hashtag is needed here and is also necessary when linking to

the section. The hashtags are used in HTML to refer to sections of a
web page, and it is from there that Markdown gets its syntax. To link to
the section we have labeled this way, we would write the link like this :

This is a link to [the section](#header).

Links are only handy for hypertext documents, and in standard

Markdown , you cannot make cross-references to figures or tables or
any non-section elements. In Pandoc you can, using an extension, but
we cover that in Chapter 7.

Images
To insert figures in your document, you use a syntax similar to
inserting links. The difference is that you need to put a bang, “!”, before
the link.


Typically, you will have the figures as local files and there you use
the path to the figure file, either relative to where you build your
document or as an absolute path.


Exercises
In the following text are a few exercises where you can test yourself on
the material covered previously. If you use an editor that can
immediately show you the result of a Markdown text, then test your
results there. Otherwise, put your answers aside until we have covered
how to format Markdown in Chapter 5.

Sections
Write a document with three level-two sections and with two level-
three sections inside each. Remember that the number of # determines
the section level. Make them both numbered and unnumbered.

Emphasis
Write this text in Markdown.

Lists
Take the three items
one item
two items
three items
and write them as a numbered and an unnumbered list.
Now, put
four items
five items
as a sublist under one item.

Block Quotes
Make the following text a block quote:

This is a text that we want to put in block

quotes.
Your task is to do this.

Links
Write a text and insert a link to a web page and to a section in your text.
Images
Find an image file and insert it into a text.
© Thomas Mailund 2019
T. Mailund, Introducing Markdown and Pandoc
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5149-2_4

4. Pandoc Markdown Extensions

Thomas Mailund1

(1) Aarhus N, Denmark

Markdown is, unfortunately, not standardized. Different tools will

support different markup syntax and process them differently. The
Markdown described in the previous chapter will work in most, if not
all, tools. The table syntax is usually less well supported, but the rest of
the markup will ordinarily work.
Pandoc provides several extensions to the Markdown language
described in the previous chapter. In this chapter, we will see some
useful extensions for lists and tables. To get a complete list of Pandoc
extensions to Markdown, you should consult the Pandoc
documentation at https://​tinyurl.​com/​y87mstzf.

Lists
Generally, the numbers you use when you write an ordered list are
ignored. They are used to indicate list items, but the actual numbering
does not matter. This makes it easier to insert a new item in the middle
of a list, which is a good thing, but sometimes you want to start a list at
a different number than one, and in that case, basic Markdown can’t
help you. With Pandoc, though, lists start with the number you give the
first item in a list. So you can start a list at number three like this:

3. This lists start at number three.

5. Although we used "5." to start this
item, it still gets the number 4.
 The numbers in the following list items are still ignored. The result
will look like this:
3. This lists start at number three.
4. Although we used “5.” to start this item, it still gets the number 4.
This is a good way to continue lists, but you will have to update the
initial number when you have added or removed items in the previous
list.
To automatically make a list continue at the next number, even
when you changed a previous list, you can use the special symbol “@”.
This works just as a number when you use it in a list, and it always
counts from where you left off. So you can write something like this:

(@) Starting a list

(@) Continuing the list

Here is some text that doesn't

belong to the list.

(@) This continues the list,

numbered from where we
left off the list.

(@label) This item is labelled

so that we can refer back
to it. Like this: see item
(@label).

The result will look like this:

(1) Starting a list

(2) Continuing the list

Here is some text that doesn’t belong to the list.

(3) This continues the list, numbered from where we left off the list.
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
polishing or wiping; the points are then all turned the same way, and
smoothed with an emery-stone turned with a wheel. This operation
finishes them, and there remains nothing but to make them into
packets.
Needles were first made in England by a native of India, in 1545, but
the art was lost at his death; it was, however, recovered by
Christopher Greening, in 1560, who was settled, with his three
children, Elizabeth, John, and Thomas, by Dr. Damar, ancestor of the
present Lord Milton, at Long Crendon, in Bucks, where the
manufactory has been carried on from that time to the present day.

Curiosities respecting Shoes.—Among the Jews, shoes were made of

leather, linen, rush, or wood; those of soldiers were sometimes of
brass or iron. They were tied with thongs, which passed under the
soles of the feet. To put off their shoes, was an act of veneration; it
was also a sign of mourning and humiliation: to bear one’s shoes, or
to untie the latchets of them, was considered as the meanest
service, as appears in the Baptist’s declaration of his own inferiority
to Christ.
Among the Greeks, shoes of various kinds were used. Sandals were
worn by women of distinction. The Lacedemonians wore red shoes.
The Grecian shoes generally reached to the middle of the leg. The
Romans used two kinds of shoes: the calceus, which covered the
whole foot, somewhat like our shoes, and was tied above with
latchets or strings; and the solea, or slipper, which covered only the
sole of the foot, and was fastened with leathern thongs. The calceus
was always worn along with the toga, when a person went abroad:
slippers were put on during a journey, and at feasts, but it was
reckoned effeminate to appear in public with them. Black shoes were
worn by the citizens of ordinary rank, and white ones by the women.
Red shoes were sometimes worn by the ladies, and purple ones by
the coxcombs of the other sex. Red shoes were put on by the chief
magistrates of Rome, on days of ceremony and triumphs. The shoes
of senators, patricians, and their children, had a crescent upon
them, which served for a buckle; these were called calcei lunati.
Slaves wore no shoes; hence they were called cretori, from their
dusty feet. Phocion also, and Cato Uticensis, went without shoes.
The toes of the Roman shoes were turned up in the point; hence
they were called calcei rostrati, repandi, &c.
In the ninth and tenth centuries, the greatest princes of Europe
wore wooden shoes, or the upper part of leather, and the sole of
wood. In the reign of William Rufus, a great beau, Robert, surnamed
The Horned, used shoes with long sharp points, stuffed with tow,
and twisted like a ram’s horn. It is said, the clergy being highly
offended, declaimed against the long-pointed shoes with great
vehemence. The points, however, continued to increase, till, in the
reign of Richard II. they were of so enormous a length, that they
were tied to knees with chains, sometimes of gold, sometimes of
silver. The upper parts of these shoes, in Chaucer’s time, were cut in
imitation of a church window. The long-pointed shoes were called
crackowes, and continued in fashion for three centuries, in spite of
the bulls of popes, the decrees of councils, and the declamations of
the clergy. At length the parliament of England interposed, by an act
A. D. 1463, prohibiting the use of shoes or boots with pikes
exceeding two inches in length, and prohibiting all shoemakers from
making shoes or boots with longer pikes, under severe penalties. But
even this was not sufficient: it was necessary to denounce the
dreadful sentence of excommunication against all who wore shoes or
boots with points longer than two inches. The present fashion of
shoes was introduced in 1633, but the buckle was not used till 1670.
In Norway, they use shoes of a particular construction, consisting of
two pieces, and without heels; in which the upper-leather sits close
to the foot, the sole being joined to it by many plates or folds.
The shoes or slippers of the Japanese, as we are informed by
Professor Thunberg, are made of rice-straw, woven; but sometimes,
for people of distinction, of fine slips of ratan. The shoe consists of a
sole, without upper-leather or hind-piece: forwards, it is crossed by a
strap, of the thickness of one’s finger, which is lined with linen; from
the tip of the shoe to the strap, a cylindrical string is carried, which
passes between the great and second toe, and keeps the shoe fast
on the foot. As these shoes have no hind-piece, they make a noise,
when people walk in them, like slippers. When the Japanese travel,
their shoes are furnished with three strings made of twisted straw,
with which they are tied to the legs and feet, to prevent them from
falling. Some people carry one or more pairs of shoes with them on
their journeys, in order to put on new when the old ones are worn
out. When it rains, or the roads are very dirty, these shoes are soon
wetted through; and a great number of worn-out shoes are
continually seen lying on the roads, especially near the brooks,
where travellers have changed their shoes after washing their feet.
Instead of these, in rainy or dirty weather, they wear high wooden
clogs, which underneath are hollowed out in the middle, and at top
have a band across, like a stirrup, and a string for the great toe; so
that they can walk without soiling their feet. Some of them have
their straw shoes fastened to these wooden clogs. The Japanese
never enter their houses with their shoes on; but leave them in the
entry, or place them on the bench near the door, and thus are
always barefooted in their houses, so as not to dirty their neat mats.

Great Bell of Moscow. From Dr. Clarke’s Travels.—“The great bell of

Moscow, known to be the largest ever founded, is in a deep pit in
the midst of the Kremlin. The history of its fall is a fable; and as
writers are accustomed to copy each other, the story continues to be
propagated. The fact is, the bell remains in the place where it was
originally cast. It never was suspended; the Russians might as well
attempt to suspend a first-rate line-of-battle ship, with all her guns
and stores. A fire took place in the Kremlin; the flames caught the
building erected over the pit where the bell yet remains; in
consequence of this, the bell became hot, and water being thrown to
extinguish the fire, fell upon the bell, causing the fracture which has
taken place. The bell reaches from the bottom of the cave to the
roof. The entrance is by a trap-door, placed even with the surface of
the earth. We found the steps very dangerous; some were wanting,
and others broken. In consequence of this, I had a severe fall down
the whole extent of the first flight, and a narrow escape for my life,
in not having my skull fractured upon the bell. After this accident, a
sentinel was placed at the trap-door, to prevent people becoming
victims to their curiosity. He might have been as well employed in
mending the ladders, as in waiting all day to say they were broken.
The bell is truly a mountain of metal. It is said to contain a very
large proportion of gold and silver. While it was in fusion, the nobles
and the people cast in, as votive offerings, their plate and money: I
endeavoured in vain to assay a small part: the natives regard it with
superstitious veneration, and they would not allow even a grain to
be filed off. At the same time, it may be said, the compound has a
white shining appearance, unlike bell-metal in general; and, perhaps,
its silvery aspect has strengthened, if not excited, a conjecture
respecting the costliness of its constituents.
“On festival days, peasants visit the bell as they would resort to a
church; considering it an act of devotion, and crossing themselves as
they descend and ascend the steps. The bottom of the pit is covered
with water, mud, and large pieces of timber; these, added to the
darkness, render it always an unpleasant and unwholesome place; in
addition to the danger arising from the ladders leading to the
bottom. I went frequently there, in order to ascertain the dimensions
of the bell with exactness. To my great surprise, during one of those
visits, half a dozen Russian officers, whom I found in the pit, agreed
to assist me in the admeasurement. It so nearly agreed with the
account published by Jonas Hanway, that the difference is not worth
notice. This is somewhat remarkable, considering the difficulty of
exactly measuring what is partly buried in the earth, and the
circumference of which is not entire. No one, I believe, has yet
ascertained the size of the base; this would afford still greater
dimensions than those we obtained; but it is entirely buried. About
ten persons were present when I measured the part exposed to
observation. We applied a strong cord close to the metal, in all parts
of its periphery, and round the lower part, where it touches the
ground, taking care at the same time not to stretch the cord. From
the piece of the bell broken off, it was ascertained that we had thus
measured within two feet of its lower extremity. The circumference
obtained was sixty-seven feet four inches; allowing a diameter of
twenty-two feet five inches, and one-third. We then took the
perpendicular height from the top, and found it to correspond
exactly with the statement made by Hanway; namely, twenty-one
feet four inches and a half. In the stoutest part, that in which it
should have received the blow of the hammer, its thickness equalled
twenty-three inches. We were able to ascertain this, by placing our
hands under water, where the fracture has taken place; this is above
seven feet high from the lip of the bell. The weight of this enormous
mass of metal has been computed to be 443,772 cwt. which, if
valued at three shillings a pound, amounts to £66,565 16s. lying
unemployed, and of no use to any one.”
It was founded, according to Augustine, in 1653, during the reign of
Alexis. (See Voyage de Moscow, page 117.) The Russians and people
of Moscow maintain, that it was cast during the reign of their
empress Anne, probably from the female figure represented.
Augustine proves that it is larger than the famous bell of Erford, and
even than that of Pekin.
 CHAP. LXXV.
CURIOSITIES IN HISTORY, &c.

Man with the Iron Mask.—There was a remarkable personage, so

denominated, who existed as a state prisoner in France during the
latter part of the seventeenth century. The circumstances of this
person form an historical enigma, which has occasioned much
inquiry, and many conjectures. The authenticated particulars
concerning the Iron Mask are as follows:—A few months after the
death of Cardinal Mazarin, there arrived at the isle of Saint
Marguerite, in the sea of Provence, a young prisoner whose
appearance was peculiarly attracting: his person was above the
middle size, and elegantly formed; his mien and deportment were
noble, and his manners graceful; and even the sound of his voice
had in it something uncommonly interesting. On the road he
constantly wore a mask made with iron springs, to enable him to eat
without taking it off. It was at first believed that this mask was made
entirely of iron, whence he acquired the title of The Man with the
Iron Mask. His attendants had received orders to dispatch him, if he
attempted to take off his mask or discover himself. He had been first
confined at Pignerol, under the care of the governor, M. de St. Mars;
and being sent thence to St. Marguerite, he was accompanied
thither by the same person, who continued to have the charge of
him. He was always treated with the utmost respect: he was served
constantly in plate; and the governor himself placed his dishes on
the table, retiring immediately after, and locking the door behind
him. He tu-to’ yoit (thee’d and thou’d) the governor; who, on the
other hand, behaved to him in the most respectful manner, and
never wore his hat before him, nor ever sat down in his presence
without being desired. The Marquis of Louvoisis, who went to see
him at St. Marguerite, spoke to him standing, and with those marks
of attention which denote high respect.
During his residence there, he attempted twice, in an indirect
manner, to make himself known. One day he wrote something with
his knife on a plate, and threw it out of his window, to a boat that
was drawn on shore near the foot of the tower. A fisherman picked it
up, and carried it to the governor. M. de St. Mars was alarmed at the
sight; and asked the man with great anxiety, whether he could read,
and whether any one else had seen the plate? The man answered,
that he could not read, that he had but just found the plate, and
that no one else had seen it. He was, however, confined till the
governor was well assured of the truth of his assertions. Another
attempt to discover himself proved equally unsuccessful. A young
man who lived in the isle, one day perceived something floating
under the prisoner’s window; and on picking it up, he discovered it
to be a very fine shirt written all over. He carried it immediately to
the governor; who, having looked at some parts of the writing,
asked the lad, with some appearance of alarm, if he had not had the
curiosity to read it? He protested repeatedly that he had not; but
two days afterwards he was found dead in his bed. The Masque de
Fer remained in that isle till 1698, when M. St. Mars, being promoted
to the government of the Bastile, conducted his prisoner to that
fortress. In his way thither, he stopt with him at his estate near
Palteau. The Mask arrived there in a litter, surrounded by a
numerous guard on horseback. M. de St. Mars ate at the same table
with him all the time they resided at Palteau; but the latter was
always placed with his back towards the windows; and the peasants,
who came to pay their compliments to their master, whom curiosity
kept constantly on the watch, observed that M. de St. Mars always
sat opposite to him, with two pistols by the side of his plate. They
were waited on by one servant only, who brought in and carried out
the dishes, always carefully shutting the door, both in going out and
returning. The prisoner was always masked, even when he passed
through the court; but the people saw his teeth and lips, and
observed that his hair was grey. The governor slept in the same
room with him, in a second bed, that was placed in it on that
occasion. In the course of his journey, the Mask was one day heard
to ask his keeper, whether the king had any design on his life? “No,
Prince,” he replied; “provided that you quietly allow yourself to be
conducted, your life is perfectly secure.”
The stranger was accommodated as well as it was possible to be in
the Bastile. An apartment had been prepared for him by order of the
governor before his arrival, fitted up in the most convenient style;
and every thing he expressed a wish for, was instantly procured him.
His table was the best that could be provided, and he was supplied
with as rich clothes as he desired; but his chief taste in this last
particular was for lace, and for linen remarkably fine. He was
allowed the use of such books as he requested, and he spent much
of his time in reading. He also amused himself with playing on the
guitar. He had the liberty of going to mass; but was then strictly
forbid to speak, or uncover his face: orders were even given to the
soldiers to fire upon him, if he attempted either; and their pieces
were always pointed towards him as he passed through the court.
When he had occasion to see a surgeon or a physician, he was
obliged, under pain of death, constantly to wear his mask. An old
physician of the Bastile, who had often attended him when he was
indisposed, said, that he never saw his face, though he had
frequently examined his tongue, and different parts of his body; and
that he never complained of his confinement, nor let fall any hint, by
which it might be guessed who he was. He often passed the night in
walking up and down his room. This unfortunate prince died on the
19th of November, 1703, after a short illness; and was interred next
day, in the burying-place of the parish of St. Paul. The expense of
his funeral amounted only to forty livres. The name given him was
Marchiali; and even his age, as well as his real name, it seemed of
importance to conceal, for in the register made of his funeral, it was
mentioned that he was about forty years old, though he had told his
apothecary, some time before his death, that he thought he must be
sixty. Immediately after his death, his apparel, linen clothes,
mattresses, and in short, every thing that had been used by him,
were burnt; the walls of his room were scraped, and the floor taken
up, evidently from the apprehension that he might have found
means of writing something that would have discovered who he
was. Nay, such was the fear of his having left a letter, or any mark
which might lead to a discovery, that his plate was melted down; the
glass was taken out of the window of his room, and pounded to
dust; the window-frames and doors burnt; and the ceiling of the
room, and the plaster of the inside of the chimney, demolished.
Several writers have affirmed, that the body of this unfortunate
personage was buried without a head; and M. de St. Foix informs us,
in his Essais Historiques, that “a gentleman having bribed the
sexton, had the body taken up in the night, but found a stone
instead of the head.” The natural inference from these extraordinary
accounts, is, that the Iron Mask was not only a person of high birth,
but that he must have been of great consequence; and that his
being concealed was of the utmost importance to the king and
ministry.
Among the various conjectures that have been formed, concerning
the real name and condition of this remarkable man, none appears
to have any probability except the following:—That he was a son of
Anne of Austria, queen to Louis XIII. and consequently that he was
a brother of Louis XIV; but whether a bastard-brother, a brother-
german, or a half-brother, is a question that has given rise to three
several opinions, viz. 1. That the queen proved with child at a time
when it was evident it could not have been by her husband, who, for
some months before, had never been with her in private. The
supposed father of this child is said to have been the duke of
Buckingham, who came to France, in May, 1625, to conduct the
princess Henrietta, wife of Charles I. to England. The private letters
and memoirs of those times speak very suspiciously of the Queen
and Buckingham: his behaviour at Amiens, whither the queen and
queen-mother accompanied the princess in her way to Boulogne,
occasioned much whispering; and it appears, that the king, on this
occasion, was extremely offended at her, and that it required all the
influence and address of the queen-mother to effect a reconciliation.
It is said, that this child was privately brought up in the country; that
when Mazarin became a favourite, he was entrusted with the care of
him; and that Louis XIV. having discovered the secret on the death
of the cardinal, thought it necessary to confine him in the manner
above related.
The second, and the most probable opinion, is, that he was the
twin-brother of Louis XIV. born some hours after him. This opinion
first appeared in a short anonymous work, published without date,
or name of place, or printer. It is therein said, “Louis XIV. was born
at St. Germains-en-Laye, on the 5th of September, 1638, about
noon; and the illustrious prisoner, known by the appellation of the
Iron Mask, was born the same day, while Louis XIII. was at supper.
The king and the cardinal, fearing that the pretensions of a twin-
brother might one day be employed to renew those civil wars with
which France had been so often afflicted, cautiously concealed his
birth, and sent him away, to be brought up privately.” This opinion
was confirmed, in a work, entitled, Memoires de Marechal Duc de
Richelieu, written by the Abbé Soulavie; in which it is asserted, that
“The birth of the prisoner happened in the evening of the 5th
September, 1638, in presence of the chancellor, the bishop of Meaux,
the author of the MS. a midwife, named Peronéte, and a sieur
Honorat.” This circumstance greatly disturbed the king’s mind; he
observed, that the Salic law had made no provision for such a case.
By the advice of cardinal Richelieu, it was therefore resolved to
conceal his birth, but to preserve his life, in case, by the death of his
brother, it should be necessary to avow him. A declaration was
drawn up, and signed and sworn to by all present; in which every
circumstance was mentioned, and several marks on his body
described. This document being sealed by the chancellor with the
royal seal, was delivered to the king; and all took an oath never to
speak on the subject, not even in private and among themselves.
The child was delivered to the care of Madame Peronéte, to be
under the direction of cardinal Richelieu, at whose death the charge
devolved to cardinal Mazarin. Mazarin appointed the author of the
MS. his governor, and entrusted to him the care of his education. But
as the prisoner was extremely attached to Madame Peronéte, and
she equally so to him, she remained with him till her death. His
governor carried him to his house in Burgundy, where he paid the
greatest attention to his education.
“As the prisoner grew up, he became impatient to discover his birth,
and often importuned his governor on that subject. His curiosity had
been roused, by observing that messengers from the court
frequently arrived at the house; and a box, containing letters from
the queen and the cardinal, having one day been inadvertently left
out, he opened it, and saw enough to guess at the secret. From that
time he became thoughtful and melancholy, which, (says the
author,) I could not then account for. He shortly after asked me to
get him a portrait of the late and present king; but I put him off, by
saying, that I could not procure any that were good. He then desired
me to let him go to Dijon; which I have known since was with an
intention of seeing a portrait of the king there, and of going secretly
to St. John de Las, where the court then was, on occasion of the
marriage with the Infanta. He was beautiful, and love helped him to
accomplish his wishes. He had captivated the affections of a young
housekeeper, who procured him a portrait of the king. It might have
served for either of the brothers; and the discovery put him into so
violent a passion, that he immediately came to me with the portrait
in his hand, saying, Voila mon frere, et voila qui je suis, shewing me
at the same time a letter of the cardinal de Mazarin that he had
taken out of the box!” Upon this discovery, his governor immediately
sent an express to court, to communicate what had happened, and
to desire new instructions; the consequence of which was, that the
governor, and the young prince under his care, were arrested and
confined. The author of this memoir concludes, “I have suffered with
him in our common prison: I am now summoned to appear before
my Judge on high; and for the peace of my soul, I cannot but make
this declaration, which may point out to him the means of freeing
himself from his present ignominious situation, in case the king his
brother should die without children. Can an extorted oath compel
me to observe secrecy on a thing so incredible, but which ought to
be left on record to posterity?”
The third opinion is, that he was a son of the queen by cardinal
Mazarin, born about a year after the death of her husband, Louis
XIII.; that he was brought up secretly; and that, soon after the
death of the cardinal, on the 9th of March, 1661, he was sent to
Pignerol. To this account Father Griffet justly objects, “that it was
needless to mask a face that was unknown; and therefore this
opinion does not merit discussion.”—(Traite de la Verité de l’Histoire,
p. 318.) Indeed, it seems totally unaccountable, that so much care
should have been taken to conceal a child of the queen by the
cardinal, who, whether they were privately married or not, could
never have had the most distant claim to the crown of France. The
conjectures advanced by other authors, that he was the duke of
Monmouth’s, the count of Vermandois’, or the duke of Beaufort’s, &c.
are still more improbable.
 CHAP. LXXVI.
CURIOSITIES IN HISTORY, ETC.—(Continued.)

Gipsies.—Mr. Lyons, in his entertaining work of the Environs of

London, has given the following curious account of the Queen of the
Gipsies, and the extraordinary people under her dominion.
From the register of the parish of Bockenham, in Kent; extract:
‘Margaret Finch, buried October 24, 1740.’—“This remarkable person
lived to the age of one hundred and nine years. She was one of the
people called Gipsies; and had from them the title of Queen. After
travelling over various parts of the kingdom, during the greater part
of a century, she settled at Norwood, whither her age, and the fame
of her fortune-telling, attracted numerous visitors. From a habit of
sitting on the ground with her chin resting on her knees, the sinews
at length became so contracted, that she could not rise from that
posture. After her death, they were obliged to enclose her body in a
deep square box. Her funeral was attended by two mourning
coaches, a sermon was preached on the occasion, and a great
concourse of people attended the ceremony. Her portrait adorns the
sign-post of a house of entertainment in Norwood, called the Gipsy-
House. In an adjoining cottage lives an old woman, grand-daughter
of queen Margaret, who inherits her title. She is niece of queen
Bridget, who was buried at Dulwich, in 1768. Her rank seems to be
merely titular: I do not find that the gypsies pay her any particular
deference; or that she differs in any other respect from the rest of
her tribe, than that of being a householder.” To the above he adds
some leading facts concerning this extraordinary race of people, who
are scattered over most parts of Europe, Asia, and America.
“The gipsies, (continues he,) in most places on the Continent are
called Cingari, or Zingari: the Spaniards call them Gitanos. It is not
certain when they first appeared in Europe; but mention is made of
them, in Hungary and Germany, so early as the year 1417. Within
ten years afterwards, they made their appearance in France,
Switzerland, and Italy. The date of their arrival in England is more
uncertain: it is most probable, that it was not till nearly a century
afterwards. In the year 1530, they are thus spoken of in the penal
statutes: ‘Forasmuch as before this time, divers and many outlandish
people, calling themselves Egyptians, using no craft nor feat of
merchandise, have come into this realm, and gone from shire to
shire, and from place to place, in great companies, and used great
subtilty and crafty means to deceive the people; bearing them in
hand, that they, by palmistry, could tell men’s and women’s fortunes;
and so, many times, by craft and subtilty, have deceived the people
of their money; and also have committed many heinous felonies and
robberies, to the great hurt and deceit of the people they have come
among, &c.’
“It was afterwards made death to them to continue in the kingdom;
and it remains on record, that thirteen were executed for a violation
of this law, a few years before the Restoration: nor was this cruel act
repealed till about the year 1783.
“The gipsies were expelled from France in 1560, and from Spain in
1591; but it does not appear that they have been entirely extirpated
in any country. Their collective numbers, in every quarter of the
globe, have been calculated at seven or eight hundred thousand.
They are most numerous in Asia, and in the northern parts of
Europe. Various have been the opinions relating to their origin. That
they came from Egypt has been the most prevalent. This opinion
(which has procured them here the name of Gipsies, and in Spain
that of Gitanos,) arose, from some of the first who arrived in Europe,
pretending that they came from that country; which assertion they
made, perhaps, to heighten their reputation for skill in palmistry[22]
and the occult sciences. It is now, I believe, pretty generally agreed,
that they came originally from Hindostan; since their language so far
coincides with the Hindostanic, that even now, after a lapse of more
than three centuries, during which they have been dispersed in
various foreign countries, nearly one half of their words are precisely
those of Hindostan; and scarcely any variation is to be found in
vocabularies procured from the gipsies in Turkey, Hungary, Germany,
and those in England.
“Their manners, for the most part, coincide, as well as their
language, in every quarter of the world where they are found; being
the same idle, wandering race of beings, and seldom professing any
ostensible mode of livelihood, except that of fortune-telling. Though
they are no great frequenters either of mosques or churches, they
generally conform to rites and ceremonies as they find them
established.
“Upon the whole, we may certainly agree with Grellman, who has
written their history, by regarding them as a singular phenomenon in
Europe. For the space of between three or four hundred years, they
have gone wandering about like pilgrims and strangers, yet neither
time nor example has made in them any alteration: they remain
ever, and every where, what their fathers were. Africa makes them
no blacker, nor does Europe make them whiter.”
It is not the least singular feature in the history of this wandering
and vagabond race, that they should have so long maintained their
credit for foretelling events, when the fallacy of their predictions
must have been so often experienced, and their ignorance and want
of principle so well known. What reliance can be placed on the
oracular decisions of a man, who has not sufficient foresight of his
own affairs, to escape the hands of justice for robbing a hen-roost?
The desire of prying into futurity seems to be a natural propensity in
the human mind. In the ancient world, the consultation of oracles,
soothsayers, and augurs, divining by the flight of birds, the entrails
of the victims, or the feeding of chickens, were so many efforts of a
weak endeavour to withdraw that veil, which in mercy is appointed
to conceal from our view the events that are to befal us.
In modern times, the impudent pretensions of astrologers,
conjurers, and fortune-tellers, have deluded the credulous, even of
that rank, in which men should set a more rational example. About
sixty years ago, a celebrated professor of this dark science lived in
London, in a place called Frying-pan Alley; and crowds of carriages
were daily seen waiting in the neighbourhood, whilst the artful
impostor was distributing different allotments to their owners,
according to his arbitrary caprice, or what he thought would bring
most money into his purse.
The following account is taken from a Liverpool weekly magazine,
entitled ‘The Freeman,’ published some years since:—
“Of late years some attempts have been made to reduce the
numbers, or at any rate to civilize the habits, of that vagabond and
useless race, the gipsies. In pursuance of such purpose, a society of
gentlemen have been making all the preliminary inquiries requisite
to a proper understanding of the subject. A series of questions have
been proposed to competent persons in the different counties of
England and Scotland; and answers have been received. The
following are specimens of these replies:
“1. All gipsies believe that Egypt was the residence of their most
remote ancestors.
“2. They cannot form any idea of their number in England.
“3. The gipsies of Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, some parts of
Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire, are
continually making revolutions within the ranges of those counties.
“4. They are either ignorant of the number of gipsies in the counties
through which they travel, or unwilling to disclose their knowledge.
“5. The most common names are Smith, Cooper, Draper, Taylor,
Boswell, Lee, Lovel, Loversedge, Allen, Mansfield, Glover, Williams,
Carew, Martin, Stanley, Buckley, Plunkett, and Corrie.
“6. and 7. The gangs in different towns have not any regular
connection or organization; but those who take up their winter
quarters in the same city or town, appear to have some knowledge
of the different routes each horde will pursue; probably with a desire
to prevent interference with each other.
“8. In the county of Herts, it is computed there may be sixty
families, having many children. Whether they are quite so numerous
in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Northamptonshire, the
answers are not sufficiently definite to determine. In
Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, and
Dorsetshire, greater numbers are calculated upon. In various
counties, the attention has not been competent to the procuring
data for any estimate of families or individuals.
“9. More than half their number follow no business: some are
dealers in horses and asses: while others profess themselves to be
farriers, smiths, tinkers, braziers, grinders of cutlery, basket-makers,
chair-bottomers, and musicians.
“10. The children are brought up in the habits of their parents,
particularly to music and dancing, and are of dissolute habits.
“11. The women mostly carry baskets with trinkets and small wares;
and tell fortunes.
“12. They are too ignorant to have acquired accounts of genealogy,
and perhaps indisposed by the irregularity of their habits.
“13. In most counties there are particular situations to which they
are partial. There is a marsh, near Newbury in Berkshire, much
frequented by them; and Dr. Clark states, that in Cambridgeshire,
their principal rendezvous is near the western villages.
“14. It cannot be ascertained whether this attachment to particular
places has prevailed from their first coming into the nation.
“15, 16, and 17. When among strangers, they elude inquiries
respecting their peculiar language, calling it Gibberish. They know of
no person that can write it, or of any written specimen of it.
“18. Their habits and customs in all places are peculiar.
“19. Those who profess any religion, represent it to be that of the
country in which they reside: but their description of it seldom goes
beyond repeating the Lord’s Prayer; and only a few of them are
capable of that. Instances of their attending any place for worship
are very rare.
“20. They marry for the most part by pledging to each other, without
any ceremony. A few exceptions have occurred, when money was
plentiful.
“21. They do not teach their children religion.
“22, and 23. Not one in a thousand can read.”
 CHAP. LXXVII.
CURIOSITIES IN HISTORY, ETC.—(Continued.)

Free and Accepted Masons.—This very ancient society is so called,

either from some extraordinary knowledge of masonry, of which they
are supposed to be masters, or because the first founders of the
society were persons of this profession. They are now very
considerable, both on account of their numbers, and the rank they
hold in society, being found in every country in Europe, as well as
North America; and they consist principally of persons of merit and
consideration. They make no small pretensions to antiquity, for they
claim a standing of some thousands of years. What the design of
their institution is, seems still in some measure a secret: the
members are said to be admitted into the fraternity by being put in
possession of a great number of secrets, called the mason’s word,
which have been religiously kept from age to age. In a treatise on
Masonry, published in 1792, by William Preston, master of the Lodge
of Antiquity, the origin of masonry is traced from the creation. “Ever
since symmetry began, and harmony displayed her charms, (says
he,) our order has had a being.” By other accounts the antiquity of
masonry has only been traced as far back as the building of
Solomon’s temple.
In Dr. Henry’s history of Great Britain, we find the origin of the Free
Mason Society attributed to the difficulty found in former times to
procure workmen to build the vast number of churches,
monasteries, and other religious edifices, which either the pretended
piety or the superstition of those ages prompted the people to raise.
Hence the masons were greatly favoured by the popes, and many
indulgences were granted, to augment their numbers. In those
times, it may well be supposed, that such encouragement from the
supreme pastors of the church must have been productive of the
most beneficial results to the fraternity; and hence the society
rapidly increased. An ancient author, who was well acquainted with
their history and constitution, says, “The Italians, with some Greek
refugees, and with them French, Germans, and Flemings, joined into
a fraternity of architects, procuring papal bulls for their
encouragement; they styled themselves Free Masons, and ranged
from one nation to another, as they found churches to be built: their
government was regular; and where they fixed near the building in
hand, they made a camp of huts. A surveyor governed in chief;
while every tenth man was called a warden, and superintended the
other nine.”
Masonry had a very early introduction into Britain, but never attained
to any degree of importance, until the year 557 of the Christian era;
when St. Austin, with forty monks, among whom the sciences had
been preserved, came into England. By these Christianity was
propagated; all the kings of the heptarchy were converted; masonry
was patronized by St. Austin; and the Gothic style of building was
introduced into England, by numerous foreigners, who resorted at
this time to the kingdom. Austin appeared at the head of the
fraternity in founding the old cathedral of Canterbury, in 600; that of
Rochester, in 602; St. Paul’s in London, in 604; St. Peter’s in
Westminster, in 605: to which may be added many others. The
number of masons was thus greatly increased, as well as by other
buildings, such as castles, &c. throughout the kingdom.
Masonry found a zealous protector in Alfred the Great, the liberal
patron of all arts and manufactures. He appropriated a seventh part
of his revenue for maintaining a number of masons, whom he
employed in rebuilding the cities, castles, &c. ruined by the Danes.
Under his successor, Edward, the masons continued to hold their
lodges; they were patronized by Ethred, husband to the king’s sister,
and Ethelwald his brother, to whom the care of this fraternity was
entrusted. The latter was a great architect, and founded the
university of Cambridge. The complete re-establishment of masonry
in England, however, is dated from the reign of king Athelstan: and
the grand masons at York trace their existence from this period.
The Grand Lodge of York, the most ancient in England, was founded
in 926, under the patronage of Edwin the king’s brother, who
obtained for them a charter from Athelstan, and became grand-
master himself. By virtue of this charter all the masons in the
kingdom were convened at a general assembly in that city, where
they established a grand lodge for their government; and for many
centuries afterwards, no general meetings were held in any other
place. Hence the appellation of Ancient York Masons is well known
both in Ireland and Scotland; and the general tradition is, that they
originated at Auldby near York, which was a seat belonging to
Edwin.
It was the glory and boast of the brethren, in almost every country
where masonry was established, to be accounted descendants of the
original York masons; and from the universality of the idea that
masonry was first established at York by charter, the masons of
England have received tribute from the first states in Europe. At
present, however, this social intercourse is abolished. The duke of
Buccleugh, who, in 1723, succeeded the duke of Wharton as grand-
master, first proposed the scheme of raising a general fund for
distressed masons. The duke’s motion was supported by Lord
Paisley, Colonel Houghton, and a few other brethren; and the grand
lodge appointed a committee to consider of the most effectual
means of carrying the scheme into execution. The disposal of the
charity was first vested in seven brethren; but this number being
found too small, nine more were added. It was afterwards resolved,
that twelve masters of contributing lodges, in rotation with the grand
officers, should form the committee; and by another regulation since
made, it has been determined that all past and present grand
officers, with the masters of all regular lodges, which shall have
contributed within twelve months to the charity, shall be members of
the committee. This committee meets four times in the year, by
virtue of a summons from the grand-master or his deputy. The
petitions of the distressed brethren are considered at these
meetings; and if the petitioner be considered as a deserving object,
he is immediately relieved with five pounds. If the circumstances of
the case are of a peculiar nature, his petition is referred to the next
communication, where he is relieved with any sum the committee
may have specified, not exceeding twenty guineas at one time. Thus
the distressed have always found ready relief from this general
charity, which is supported by the voluntary contributions of different
lodges out of their private funds, without being burdensome to any
member in the society. Thus has the committee of charity for free
masons been established; and so liberal have the contributions
been, that though the sums annually expended, for the relief of the
distressed brethren, have for several years past amounted to many
thousand pounds, there still remains a considerable fund.
The most remarkable event which of late has taken place in the
affairs of masonry, is the initiation of Omitul Omrah Bahauder, eldest
son of the nabob of the Carnatic, who was received by the lodge of
Trinchinopoly, in the year 1779. The news being officially transmitted
to England, the grand lodge determined to send a congratulatory
letter to his highness on the occasion, accompanied with an apron
elegantly decorated, and a copy of the book of Constitutions
superbly bound. The execution of this commission was entrusted to
Sir John Duy, advocate-general of Bengal; and in the beginning of
1780, an answer was received from his highness, acknowledging the
receipt of the present, and expressing the warmest attachment and
benevolence to his brethren in England. The letter was written in the
Persian language, and inclosed in an elegant cover of cloth of gold,
and addressed to the grand-master and grand lodge of England. A
proper reply was made; and a translation of his highness’s letter was
ordered to be copied on vellum; and, with the original, elegantly
framed and glazed, and hung up in the hall at every public meeting
of the society.
It must be natural to inquire into the uses of the institution, and for
what purpose it has been patronized by so many great and
illustrious personages. The profound secrecy, however, in which
every thing relating to masonry is involved, prevents us from being
very particular on this head. The masons themselves say in general,
that it promotes philanthropy, friendship, and morality; that in
proportion as masonry has been cultivated, countries have become
civilized, &c. How far this can be depended upon, the fraternity best
know. Another advantage, however, seems less equivocal, viz. that
its signs serve as a kind of universal language; so that by means of
them, people of the most distant nations may become acquainted,
and enter into friendship with one another. This certainly must be
accounted a very important circumstance; and considering the great
numbers that have been, and daily are, admitted to the society, and
their inviolable attachment to the art, we must certainly conclude,
that if it contains nothing of great importance to mankind at large, it
must at least be extremely agreeable, and even fascinating, to those
who are once initiated.
 CHAP. LXXVIII.
CURIOSITIES IN HISTORY, ETC.—(Continued.)
Peeping Tom of Coventry—Long absent
Husband returned—Curious
Historical Fact—The most
Extraordinary Fact on Record.

Peeping Tom of Coventry.—The following are the particulars of the

event which, it is said, gave birth to the above appellation.
The wife of Leofric, earl of Mercia, with her husband, founded a
monastery, for an abbot and twenty-four Benedictine monks, at
Coventry, in 1043; which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, St. Peter,
and St. Osburg. Leofric and his Lady, who both died about the latter
end of the reign of Edward the Confessor, were buried in the church
of the abbey which they had founded. The former seems to have
been the first lord of Coventry, and the latter its greatest
benefactress, as will appear from the following extraordinary and
indeed romantic tradition, which is not only firmly believed at
Coventry, but is recorded by many of our own historians:—
The earl had granted the convent and city many valuable privileges;
but the inhabitants having offended him, he imposed on them very
heavy taxes; for the great lords to whom the town belonged, under
the Anglo-Saxons, had those privileges, which cannot be exercised
at present by any but the house of commons. The people
complained grievously of the severity of the taxes, and applied to
Godeva, the earl’s lady, a woman of great piety and virtue, to
intercede in their favour. She willingly complied with the request; but
the earl remained inexorable! he told his lady, that were she to ride
naked through the streets of the city, he would remit the tax;
meaning, that no persuasion whatever should prevail with him, and
thinking to silence her by the strange proposal: but she, sensibly
touched by the distress of the city, generously accepted the terms.
She therefore sent notice to the magistrates of the town, with the
strictest orders that all doors and windows should be shut, and that
no person should attempt to look out on pain of death. These
precautions being taken, the lady rode through the city, covered only
with her fine flowing locks. While riding in this manner through the
streets, no one dared to look at her, except a poor tailor, who, as a
punishment, it is said, for his violating the injunctions of the noble
lady, which had been published with so pious and benevolent a
design, was struck blind. This tailor has been ever since remembered
by the name of Peeping Tom; and in memory of the event, his figure
is still kept up in the window of the house, from whence, it is said,
he gratified his curiosity. The lady having thus discharged her
engagements, the earl performed his promise, and granted the city a
charter, by which the inhabitants were exempted from all taxes. As a
proof of this circumstance, in a window of Trinity church are the
figures of the Earl and his Lady, and beneath the following
inscription:—
“I, Luriche, for the love of thee,
Doe set Coventre toll free.”
To this day, the love of Godeva is annually commemorated on Friday
in Trinity week, when a valiant fair one rides, not literally like the
good countess, but in silk, closely fitted to her limbs, and of colour
emulating her complexion. The figure of Peeping Tom, in the great
street, is also new dressed on the occasion. Mr. O’Keefe has
produced a musical entertainment on this subject, written with all
the delicacy the subject would admit.

The Long Absent Husband returned: (From Dr. King’s Anecdotes.)

—“About the year 1706, I knew,” said Dr. King, “one Mr. Howe, a
sensible well-natured man, possessed of an estate of £700 or £800
per annum; he married a young lady of good family, in the west of
England; her maiden name was Mallet; she was agreeable in her
person and manners, and proved a very good wife. Seven or eight
years after they had been married, he arose one morning very early,
and told his wife he was obliged to go to the Tower to transact some
particular business: the same day, at noon, his wife received a note
from him, in which he informed her that he was under the necessity
of going to Holland, and should probably be absent three weeks or a
month. He was absent from her seventeen years, during which time
she never heard from him or of him. The evening before he
returned, while she was at supper, and with some of her friends and
relations, particularly one Dr. Rose, a physician, who had married her
sister, a billet, without any name subscribed, was delivered to her, in
which the writer requested the favour of her to give him a meeting
the next evening, in the Birdcage-walk, in St. James’s Park. When
she had read the billet, she tossed it to Dr. Rose, and laughing, said,
‘You see, brother, old as I am, I have got a gallant.’ Rose, who
perused the note with more attention, declared it to be Mr. Howe’s
hand-writing: this surprised all the company, and so much affected
Mrs. Howe, that she fainted away; however, she soon recovered,
when it was agreed that Dr. Rose and his wife, with the other
gentlemen and ladies who were then at supper, should attend Mrs.
Howe the next evening to the Birdcage-walk: they had not been
there more than five or six minutes, when Mr. Howe came to them,
and after saluting his friends, and embracing his wife, walked home
with her, and they lived together in great harmony from that time to
the day of his death. But the most curious part of my tale remains to
be related.
“When Howe left his wife, they lived in a house in Jermyn-street,
near St. James’s church; he went no farther than a little street in
Westminster, where he took a room, for which he paid five or six
shillings a week, and changing his name, and disguising himself by
wearing a black wig, (for he was a fair man,) he remained in this
habitation during the whole time of his absence! He had two children
by his wife when he departed from her, who were both living at that
time; but they both died young, in a few years after. However,
during their lives, the second or third year after their father
disappeared, Mrs. Howe was obliged to apply for an act of
parliament, to procure a proper settlement of her husband’s estate,
and a provision for herself out of it, during his absence, as it was
uncertain whether he was alive or dead; this act he suffered to be
solicited and passed, and enjoyed the pleasure of reading the
progress of it in the votes, in a little coffee-house which he
frequented, near his lodging.
“Upon quitting his house and family in the manner I have
mentioned, Mrs. Howe at first imagined, as she could not conceive
any other cause for such an abrupt elopement, that he had
contracted a large debt unknown to her, and by that means involved
himself in difficulties which he could not easily surmount; and for
some days she lived in continual apprehension of demands from
creditors, or seizures, executions, &c. But nothing of this kind
happened; on the contrary, he did not only leave his estate free and
unencumbered, but he paid the bills of every tradesman with whom
he had any dealings; and upon examining his papers, in due time
after he was gone, proper receipts and discharges were found from
all persons, whether tradesmen or others, with whom he had any
manner of transactions or money concerns. Mrs. Howe, after the
death of her children, thought proper to lessen her establishment of
servants, and the expenses of her housekeeping: and therefore
removed from her house in Jermyn-street, to a little house in
Brewer-street, near Golden-square. Just over-against her lived one
Salt, a corn-chandler. About ten years after Howe’s abdication, he
contrived to form an acquaintance with Salt, and was at length in
such a degree of intimacy with him, that he usually dined with Salt
once or twice a week. From the room in which they sat, it was not
difficult to look into Mrs. Howe’s dining-room, where she generally
ate, and received her company; and Salt, who believed Howe to be
a bachelor, frequently recommended Mrs. Howe as a suitable match.
During the last seven years of this gentleman’s absence, he went
every Sunday to St. James’s church, and used to sit in Mr. Salt’s seat,
where he had a view of his wife, but could not be easily seen by her.
After he returned home, he never would confess, even to his most
intimate friends, what was the real cause of such a singular conduct:
apparently there was none; but whatever there was, he was
certainly ashamed to own it.
“Dr. Rose has often said to me, that he believed his brother Howe
would never[23] have returned to his wife, if the money which he
took with him, which was supposed to have been £1000 or £2000,
had not been all spent: indeed, he must have been a good
economist, and frugal in his manner of living, otherwise his money
would scarcely have held out; for I imagine he had his whole fortune
by him; I mean what he carried away with him in money and bank-
bills: and he daily took out of his bag, like the Spaniard in Gil Blas,
what was sufficient for his expenses.”

A Curious Historical Fact.—During the troubles in the reign of Charles

I. a country girl came to London, in search of a place as a servant
maid; but not succeeding, she hired herself to carry out beer from a
brewhouse, and was one of those called tub-women. The brewer,
observing a good looking girl in this low occupation, took her into his
family as a servant, and, after a short time, married her; but he died
while she was yet a young woman, and left her the bulk of his
fortune. The business of the brewery was dropped, and the young
widow was recommended to Mr. Hyde, as a skilful lawyer to arrange
her husband’s affairs. Hyde, (who was afterwards the great Earl of
Clarendon,) finding her fortune considerable, married her. Of this
marriage there was no other issue than a daughter, who was
afterwards the wife of James II., and mother of Mary and Anne,
queens of England.
The following is said to be The most Extraordinary Fact on record.—In
the appendix to the Rev. John Campbell’s Travels in South Africa, is
recorded one of the strangest occurrences in the moral annals of
mankind. It will be recollected, that some years ago the Grosvenor,
East Indiaman, was wrecked off the coast of Caffraria, (a district
divided from the country of the Hottentots by the Great Fish River,)
and that nearly the whole of the passengers and crew perished on
the occasion. It was, however, discovered, that two young ladies had
survived the miseries of this dreadful event, and were resident in the
interior of a country uninhabited by Europeans. Mr. Campbell does
not relate this occurrence from personal evidence, but we cannot
doubt the extraordinary fact.
The Landdrost of Graaf Ragrel had been deputed by the British
government to pay a visit to the king of Caffraria, for the purpose of
ascertaining whether there were any survivors from the wreck of the
Grosvenor. Finding there were two females, he succeeded in
procuring an introduction to them. He saw them habited like Caffre
women; their bodies were painted after the fashion of the native
inhabitants; and their manners and appearance were altogether
anti-European. The Landdrost, however, sought to obtain their
confidence by a liberal offer of his best services to restore them to
their country and friends. But they were unmoved by his
solicitations. They stated that they had fallen into the hands of the
natives after they had been cast ashore from the wreck; that their
companions had been murdered, and that they had been compelled
to give themselves in marriage; that having affectionate husbands,
children, and grand-children, their attachments were bounded by
their actual enjoyments. Upon being repeatedly urged to depart with
the Landdrost, they replied, that probably at their return to England
they might find themselves without connections or friends, and that
their acquired habits ill fitted them to mingle with polished society;
in short, that they would not quit Caffraria.
Such, then, is the powerful influence of habit! Two young ladies,
highly educated, and in all probability lovely in their persons, are
taught by habit to forget those scenes of gaiety they were so well
calculated to ornament, and the anticipated enjoyments of high
matrimonial connections; to forget their parents, their relations, the
accomplished companions of their youth, and all the refinements of
life! Among a savage people, they acquire congenial feelings, and
their vitiated nature ceases to repine: they love the untutored
husbands given to them by fate; they rear their children in the
stupidity of Hottentot faith; they designate their wretched hovel with
the sacred name of Home; they expel memory from their
occupations; and regret no longer mingles with their routine of
barbarous pleasures. Is this, in reality, a picture of the human mind,
with all its boasted attributes, its delicacies, its refinements, its
civilized superiority? Yes! for custom is a second nature.
This fact is also related by Vaillant, in his Travels in the interior parts
of Africa. He says, volume i. page 286, “I was told, almost six weeks
prior to my visiting that coast, that an English vessel had been
wrecked on these barbarous shores; that being driven on the sands,
a part of the crew had fallen into the hands of the Caffres, who had
put them all to death, except a few women, whom they had cruelly
reserved.”

Unfortunate Artificer.—There was an artificer in Rome, who made

vessels of glass of so tenacious a temper, that they were as little
liable to be broken as those that are made of gold and silver: when
therefore he had made a vial of the purer sort, and such as he
thought a present worthy of Cæsar alone, he was admitted into the
presence of their then Emperor Tiberius. The gift was praised, the
skilful hand of the artist applauded, and the donation of the giver
accepted. The artist, that he might enhance the wonder of the
spectators, and promote himself yet further in the favour of the
Emperor, desired the vial out of Cæsar’s hand, and threw it with
such force against the floor, that the most solid metal would have
received some damage or bruise thereby. Cæsar was not only
amazed, but affrighted with the act; but he, taking up the vial from
the ground, (which was not broken, but only bruised together, as if
the substance of the glass had put on the temperature of brass,) he
drew out an instrument from his bosom, and beat it out to its former
figure. This done, he imagined that he had conquered the world, as
believing that he had merited an acquaintance with Cæsar, and
raised the admiration of all the beholders; but it fell out otherwise,
for the Emperor inquired if any other person besides himself was
privy to the like tempering of glass? When he had told him, “No,” he
commanded his attendants to strike off his head, saying, “That
should this artifice come once to be known, gold and silver would be
of as little value as the dirt of the street.” Long after this, viz. in
1610, we read, that amongst other rare presents, then sent from the
Sophy of Persia to the king of Spain, were six mirrors of malleable
glass, so exquisitely tempered that they could not be broken.
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