range and the
Irish forces of James II., and the panic known as the "Irish night,"
which deserve to be consulted by Mr. Macaulay, for the next edition of
his History. The whole work will well repay a perusal, and what is there
of Defoe's writing which will not?

D.S.

_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.

[Mr. Ker's book was certainly reviewed in _Fraser's Magazine_ at
the time of its appearance, and probably in other literary
journals.]

_By Hook or By Crook_.--I have met with it somewhere, but have lost my
note, that Hooke and Crooke were two judges, who in their day decided
most unconscientiously whenever the interests of the crown were
affected, and it used to be said that the king could get anything by
Hooke or by Crooke. Query, is _this_ the origin of the phrase?

If I cannot give _my_ authority, perhaps "J.R.F." may be able to give
_his_, for deriving it from "_Forest Customs_?"

H.T.E.

_El Buscapie_.--A very full and able disquisition on the subject of MR.
SINGER's query (No. 11., p. 171.), respecting _El Buscapie_, will be
found in the appendix to a work which is just published, viz. Ticknor's
_History of Spanish Literature_, vol. iii.