Among these small matters of an author’s natural inventiveness, I will preserve here a few of the literary class:  e.g., (1.) I claim to have discovered the etymology of Punch, which Mark Antony Lower in his Patronymica says is “a name the origin of which is in total obscurity.”  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 mediaeval 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 “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,—­“he had a great fall,” and burst asunder like Iscariot, while “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t set Humpty Dumpty up again.”  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 “Daddy Longlegs,”—­and (4) sang about King John’s raid upon the monks, and the consequent famine to the poor, in “Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie,” &c.,—­the key to this interpretation being “a dainty dish to set before the king,” 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, “more meo” I printed thus on a very scarce fly-leaf, as one of my Protestant Ballads not in any book:—­

     “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.”—­Rev. xiii. 18.

    “Count up the sum of Greek numeral letters
      ’Kakoi Episkopoi’—­bishops all ill;
    Strangely I note that those mystical fetters
      Bind in their number this mystery still—­
    Six hundred threescore and six is the total,
      Spelling the number and name of a man,
    Chief of bad bishops and lies sacerdotal,
      That of all wickedness stands in the van.