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 p…