There are three volumes of commonplace books. The third volume is in French and features short biographies and occassional quotes from the works of the following authors: Mademoiselle de Scudery; Racine; Boileau-Despréaux; Phillipe Quinault; La Fonatine; Molière; and Voltaire.

The commonplace book was likely produced by a woman c1808 and primarily features poems by early Romantic English and Scottish poets. The book begins with several excepts from poems on the subject of war,including James Thomson’s “O beauteous peace!” from Act II, Scene 4 of Tancred and Sigismunda, quotes from William Thomas Fitzgerald, James Macpherson’s Poems of Ossian, and two excerpts from Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian: “On court bien loin pour cherchr le bonheur …” and “Heureux le mortel obscur qui, sans rang, sans biens, sans naissance, ne connait d’autres devoirs …”. The book appears to have been dedicated to one Capt. Colquhoun of the 40th Regiment, given that illustrations of love letters added to the volume are addressed to him, perhaps explaining this early focus on warfare. It is likely that this was Captain Archibald Colquhoun who who fought in the Napoleonic Wars in Portugal with the 2nd Battalion, 40th Regiment of Foot, and was wounded in the Battle of Talavera in July 1809. The book then explores a second theme of slavery, quoting from anti-slavery poets such as William Cowper and James Beattie. The remainder of the book has no theme, but strong Romantic sentiments, quoting from Shakespeare, Homer, Voltaire, Goldsmith, Robert Bloomfield, and Melin de Saint Gelais. In addition, her commonplace book contains excerpts from he works of several women writers and poets including Hannah More, Charlotte Smith, Sophia Lee, and one Mrs Kerr, the author of a poem titled “The Complaint.”