The contents are as follows.
(i) ‘On the laying the Foundation of the High School of Edinburgh, 24th June, 1777’ (folio i);
(ii) ‘Winter Hymn’ with a note, 26 January 1829 (folio 2);
(iii) ‘Morning Hymn’, endorsed, ‘Written out 1825, composed chiefly in a dream at Canaan Lodge [Edinburgh] one beautiful morning in August, 1825’; two copies (folio 4);
(iv) ‘Ink loquitur’, endorsed, ‘(Impromptu) to Steuart of Allantoun, the translator of Sallust, who sent to borrow some ink of me, 1806’ (folio 6);
(v) "Verses for Lady Frances Beresford’s Album, 1823" (folio 7);
(vi) "On Strona’s black and jagged Brow", endorsed, ‘2 addl. Verses to ye Introdn. to Gray’s fatal Sisters. Those almost verbatim what I dreamd that I read to some person who wished to hear ye poem’ (folio 8);
(vii) ‘Fragments of a projected Poem called the Highlander’; ‘Scrolls for the Highlander, a Poem. N. A Copy, but without these Additions & Alterations, sent to Sir Wr. Scott Decr 1824’ (folio 9);
(viii) 'Verses by Miss Bruce’; ‘To Miss Bruce of Kinross, with a Remarkable Dream, in which she was the principal person’; "Sent with a copy of Bethune’s Heart display'd or Anatomy of the Human Mind to Miss Bruce of Kinross" (folio 17);
(ix) Copies of John Leyden’s sonnets, ‘Love’ and ‘Serenity of Childhood’ (folio 20);
(x) ‘Lines written by an Eton scholar on his Dames daughter with whom he had been in love’; ‘Friendship’; ‘Inscription on the tomb of Margaret Scott’ (folio 21);
(xi) Eight lines, containing,
“While Mem’ry true o’er every scene can cast
A sweet delusion which recalls the past” (folio 23);
(xii) Draft of a poem, beginning,
‘. .. beneath the crown
The offspring of some humble clown’ (folio 24).
