The contents are as follows.

(i) Printed demand addressed to Sir Thomas Pope of Wroxton, signed by King Charles I and countersigned by Sir Edward Littleton, Lord Chancellor, for a voluntary contribution to the loan raised against the Scots invasion, 1643/1644. (Folio 1.)

(ii) Letter to the High Sheriff of the County of Montgomery, signed by King Charles I and countersigned by Littleton, 1644. Half the loan raised in the County is to be paid to Prince Rupert for the army under his command. (Folio 3.)

(iii) Letter of Archibald Campbell, Marquess of Argyll, to his ‘loving sonne’, denying his complicity in the execution of Charles I, 1663. (Folio 5.)

(iv) Letter of James Sharp, Archbishop of St Andrews, to the Earl (afterwards Duke) of Lauderdale, 1662. Lauderdale’s reply is printed in the ‘Miscellany of the Scottish History Society’ (1893), pages 251-252. (Folio 7).

(v) Letter of Field-Marshal George Wade, written from near Lille, giving a detailed account of the supply and cost of forage and speaking of the prospects of the war, 1744. (Folio 8.)

(vi) Four letters of Alexander Abercromby, Lord Abercromby, a Senator of the College of Justice, to Henry Dundas, afterwards 1st Viscount Melville, 1784-1794. In the letter of 4 March 1794 (folio 22), he forwarded a copy (wanting) of the notes which he took on the trial of T F Palmer. He also forwards a letter and memorandum of Allan Maconochie (afterwards Lord Meadowbank) on the preservation of records of ancient Hindu learning, 1788 (folio 14). (Folio 10.)

(vii) Three letters of Dugald Stewart, and one of his wife, addressed to Lady Katherine Halkett and to her husband, John Halkett, relating to the latter’s pamphlet in support of the Red River settlement of the Earl of Selkirk, Lady Halkett’s brother, 1817. (Folio 24.)

(viii) Two letters of Sir Walter Scott to ‘The Author of the Lake of Fire’, giving advice and candid criticism, [?1823], and to Mrs Guppy, Arno’s Court, near Bristol, 1825. (Folio 30.)

(ix) Autograph poem of James Hogg on Robert Burns, entitled "Robin’s Awa", dated Mount Benger, 25 January (Burns’ birthday), 1823, with the words beneath in the author’s hand, ‘never published’. It differs considerably from the version printed among the poems on Burns in ‘The works of Robert Burns’, edited by James Hogg and William Motherwell (Glasgow, 1836), volume v, page 287. (Folio 33.)

(x) Letter of Joseph Hume, MP, 1832. (Folio 34.)

(xi) Letter of Benjamin Disraeli, 1842. (Folio 36.)

(xii) Letter of Tennyson to Ludovic Colquhoun, Advocate, inviting him to Malvern to join ‘Miller and other bonny Scots’, 1848. (Folio 38.)

(xiii) Four letters of Thomas Carlyle: to F W Fairholt, with a memorandum on Cromwell’s battlefields, 1844 (folio 40); to Aubrey Thomas de Vere, proposing a meeting with Gerald Fitzgibbon, and referring to Tennyson, 1849 (folio 43); letter dealing with the number of volumes of which his ‘Frederick the Great’ may consist, 1857 (folio 45); letter (signed only) to Thomas Kemp, Haddington, accompanying a gift to the town of Haddington of his complete works, 1869 (folio 47).

(xiv) Three autograph stanzas by Jane Welsh, afterwards wife of Thomas Carlyle, undated, beginning:

With Song and Dance grotesque, Historians say The Jews, did homage to the Ark display: We Christians, more refined, do pious airs, And holy Anthems, mingle with our prayers. (Folio 49.)

(xv) Letter of Jane Welsh Carlyle to Mrs Mackenzie, undated. (Folio 51.)

(xvi) Three letters of John Ruskin to Marcus B Huish, discussing pictures of Turner and Millais and referring to Edmund Gosse, 1882, 1884, undated. (Folio 53).