The account is headed "Life of William Cowper, Bishop of Galloway and Dean of the Chapel Royal of Holyrood." A note at folio 1 refers to the "Address of Principal Lee to the students of the University of Edinburgh at the opening of the session 1846" and this date is added in pencil at folio 1; but the present text is the work of a different author. Neither the hand nor the subject-matter of this account seems to resemble either in Lee`s discourses in MS.3452; it is not in the selection which was published as ‘Inaugural Addresses’ in 1861, and the discourse dated 1846 that is published therein is different from this text; nor does it appear in the ‘Catalogue of the ... collection of [Lee`s] manuscripts’ sold in 1861; furthermore, the present text appears to have been written from an episcopalian viewpoint. The text is written on one side of the sheet with short additions written between the lines: longer additions are written on some of the versos. Apparently intended to be printed (folios 75, 77), it is not known to have been published. An earlier account of Cowper is at Adv.MS.13.1.3(iii), page 266 and what follows, which the writer of this may have consulted (cf. folio 4 verso, 17 verso, 18 verso).

The present account is possibly the work of the ecclesiastical historian John Parker Lawson, whose planned 'Selected works of the Right Rev. William Cowper' was advertised in 1847 but never appeared. The hand resembles Lawson's.