The contents are as follows.

(i) Copies of poems of John Leyden, including some not published in collected editions of his works. (Folio 1.)

(ii) Writings in Leyden's hand: note on the magical books of Michael Scott (folio 71 verso); prose fragment, 'The Sexton' (folio 72); fragments of two poems in Scots, namely, one on the death of a sexton, signed 'J.L., Banks of Teviot', and a verse epistle to the printer of the ‘British Chronicle’ (folio 73); fragment of 'Bellicosum Facinus, or, the Doughty Deed', 13 October 1794 (folio 74); sermon (folio 75); poem, 'To the Ladies of Tinwald Downs' (folio 93).

(iii) Copies of letters and parts of letters of Leyden and notes of the contents of others, 1800-1810, most of them written in the East. They are not in order of date. The originals of some are in MS.971 and MS.3380. They include Leyden's journals of his journey from Madras to Seringapatam with the Mysore Survey, 1804 (folio 176 verso), and of his passage from Penang to Calcutta, 1806 (folio 202), besides long extracts from letters describing his journey down the west coast and voyage to Penang in 1805. (Folio 120.)

(iv) Letters, 1815, undated, of Richard Heber, probably all to Morton, preceded by a list of manuscripts belonging to Leyden's estate in Heber's possession. (Folio 246.)

(v) Extract from John Gibson Lockhart's ‘Life of Sir Walter Scott' (Edinburgh, 1837). (Folio 258.)