Thanks her for the books, and tells her that he still has two pots of marmalade. Asks her not to send just yet the 'John Baptist', which he is thinking of having framed. States that if he can find time he shall go down to Rugby 'in the course of the term.' Reports that the Provost of King's [College: Richard Okes] asked him to dine 'to meet the Moul[ ]s. Refers to a conversation he had with 'the Rector', who 'talked about old Cambridge - Macaulay, Praed etc'. Asks her to tell Arthur that 'the book on the bible is Exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament', which is in 'innumerable parts by different authors'. Announces that Cambridge 'is getting lively', and that they are to have a University Gazette 'and become very vocal.'
Eton College - Thanks WW for his congratulations, but ECH 'was quite right in not coming to Kings'. Richard Okes is a more suitable person while 'Eton is, I think, better suited to me'.
Drafts of poems and printed poems by Shilleto, Robert Burn, Sir William Hamilton, Morris Moore, Richard Okes, as well as those signed with initals only: J. B., H., and W. S. [William Selwyn?]. Poems include Hamilton's "Sonnet on the Meeting of the British Association at Cambridge, 1833", W. S.'s "Experience of Magnetic Belt", four lines by H. starting "The Lytteltons give all the time up to cricket," Robert Burn's "Piscator," Morris Moore junor's formal address to Thompson, 30 July 1869. On the verso of one set of poems is a printed list of freshmen, 1882.
The collection also includes a letter (in French) dated 9 March 1869 from A. Bos, Italian translator of G. H. Lewes's Physiology of Common Life asking about a report from the Evening Standard that the students have been served donkey at Trinity.
The collection is accompanied by two letters from W. Wollaston Groome to Mr Dykes dated May 1919 relating to the provenance of the verses, and his personal memories of W. H. Thompson.