_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_.