This notebook contains short essays on various topics, such as public singers ("the Mountebanks of the Voice"), the embarrassments of public men (Daniel E. Sickles and Philip Barton Key), songs, wit, wealth, suicide, Benjamin Rush, "that little sneak Kossuth," and modern authors ("the present wretches of the pen").

In this volume Rush comments on persons and events of the time, mentioning Robert Walsh, John Vaughan, Lafayette, James Rush, Peter S. Du Ponceau, and William Currie. Rush also comments on the Franklin Institute, and the American Philosophical Society.