_Muffins_.--The correspondent who, in No. 11., p. 173., inquires the
origin of the word "Muffin," is referred to Urquhart's _Pillars of
Hercules_, vol. ii. p. 143., just published, where he will find a large
excursus on this subject. The word, he avers, is _Phoenician_: from
_maphula_, one of those kinds of bread named as such by Athenaeus. "It
was a _cake_," says Athenaeus, "baked on a hearth or griddle." He
derives this by taking away the final vowel, and then changing _l_ for
_n_; thus: "maphula," "maphul," "mufun!!!"

In this strange book there are fifty other etymologies as remarkable as
this. The author plainly offers them in hard earnest. This is something
worth _noting_.

V.

_By Hook or Crook_.--"As in the phrase 'to get by hook or crook;' in the
sense of, to get by any expedient, to stick at nothing to obtain the
end; not to be over nice in obtaining your ends--_By hucke o'er krooke_;
e.g. _by bending the knees, and by bowing low_, or as we now say, by
bowing and scraping, by crouching and cringing."--Bellenden Ker's
_Essay on the Archaeology our Popular Phrases and Nursery Rhymes_, vol.
i. p. 21. ed. 1837.

I wish your correspondent, "J.R.F.," had given a reference to the book
or charter from which he copied his note.

Has Mr. B. Ker's work ever been reviewed?

MELANION.