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Now, I found it out thus,--when at Haverfordwest in 1858 I saw over the mantel of the hostelry, perhaps there still, a map of the Roman earthwork called locally Punch Castle; and considering how that the neighbouring hills are named Precelly (Procella, storm) as often drawing down the rain-clouds,--that Caer Leon is Castrum Legionis, and that there is a Roman bridge over the little river there still styled Ultra Pontem--I decided at once that Pontii Castellum was the true name for Punch Castle. Of course, Pontius Pilate and Judas appear in the mediæval puppet-plays as Punch and Judy,--while Toby refers to Tobit's dog, in a happy confusion of names and dates. The Pontius of the Castle was Prater of the Second Legion. (2.) Similarly, I found out the origin of
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Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, &c., to refer to the death of William the Conqueror (_L'homme qui dompte_), who was ruptured in leaping a burnt wall at Rouen; being very stout,--
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and burst asunder like Iscariot, while
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We must remember that the wise Fools of those days dared not call magnates by their real names,--nor utter facts openly: so accordingly (3) they turned Edward Longshanks into
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Daddy Longlegs, --and (4) sang about King John's raid upon the monks, and the consequent famine to the poor, in
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Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie, &c.,--the key to this interpretation being
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John being a notorious glutton. My friends at Ledbury Manor, where there is a gallery full of my uncle Arthur's Indian pictures, will remember how I expounded all this to them some years ago. In this connection of literary discovery, let me here give my exposition of the mystic number in Revelations, 666,--which,
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Here is wisdom--Let him that hath understanding count the number of the Beast--for it is the number of a Man--and his number is six hundred threescore and six.