The bulk of the manuscript consists of jokes and puns that Lewis found amusing, as well as lengthy transcriptions of literary works by other authors. Some of the humor has a contemporary political slant, such as Jekyll's "Parody on God Save the King" or an ironical excerpt on literacy and the slave trade attributed to a 1799 speech by George Canning. Monk transcribed passages from works as various as the Book of Job, Dryden's Aureng-Zebe, Indian Emperor, Tyrannic Love and Essay on Dramatic Poesy, Rousseau's Emile, Crabbe's The Village, Boswell's Life of Johnson, Melville's Memoirs, Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population, Madame de StaeĢl's Corinne, Scott's Lay of the last minstrel, and Southey's Thalaba. The collection contains the entirety of some well-known shorter works, such as Coleridge's "Fire, Famine, and Slaughter", Cowper's "On a Spaniel, called Beau", and Johnson's "Letter to Lord Chesterfield". It also displays an avid interest in ballads, songs and toasts, often of Irish and Scottish origin. In addition to the literary and popular content, Lewis inserts small, frequently unattributed bits of information, accurate or not, about foreign cultures and locales: "Sculpture and Painting are forbidden by the Koran" or, "Acapulco is much infested with Gnats and Earthquakes."
