James D. Hague 



their own ; and one of the leading 

 literary periodicals in England said, 

 in effect, that inquiry at the Library 

 of the British Museum confirmed the 

 shrewd suspicion that no such mag- 

 azine ever existed. 



In 1880, a London publisher 

 brought out the bogus song in sheet 

 music, concerning which Bartlett, in 

 his Familiar Qzwtations (1891), after 

 saying that the composer of the music 

 acknowledged, in a private letter, 

 that he had copied the song from an 

 American newspaper, makes a per- 

 sonal reference to Mr. Cutter as " the 

 reputed author, Ruthven Jenkyns." 



An amusing sequel to the story of 

 this invented name appeared when a 

 distinguished member of the Jenkins 

 family in the United States, a man 

 eminent in the naval service, seri- 

 ously claimed Cutter's fictitious au- 

 thor as an ancestral relative. 



It seems, moreover, something like 

 69 



