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Quoting anecdote about Dr. Johnson, as recorded in Fanny Burney's diary, to illustrate harsh result of recent political entanglements of William Tooke, F.R.S.

Including a reference to letters of her late aunt, Fanny Burney.

West Hackhurst, Abinger Hammer, Dorking. - Is ‘all right again’; only did not go to the Wednesday concert in Dorking as he was ‘hearing music in London instead’. As soon as ‘the air stops being like ice and the ground like glass’, hopes to visit, but ‘even the blackbirds can’t stand up when they walk to a crumb, so what help is there for humans?’.

Has been much enjoying ‘the Berenson poem in the Abinger Chronicle [Vol. 1. No. 2. To Bernhard Berenson; it is ‘not as good as the Goldie [Dickinson] one, but Berenson is not as good as Goldie, and within the limits he imposes Bob has turned out a very lovely and moving tribute to civilisation’. Has been reading a book about M[atthew] Arnold by ‘an America, called Trilling’; does not think he ‘has much feeling for poetry, but he is very good otherwise’, and gives Forster ‘surer ground’ for his admiration of Arnold.

Has ‘also read Elizabeth [von Arnim]’s frothy new novel Mr Skeffington’; it ‘has a touching denouement and was not badly built, and might have been good if she hadn’t such a frilly undi-fied [? undignified] mind. Has also read [Pope’s] Dunciad. Remembers Evelina [the book by Fanny Burney?]as ‘rather too little of a good thing’. His ‘trousers caught on fire at the Woolfs, and the house caught on fire at the Bells, but neither fatally’ and he much enjoyed himself. ‘Clive Bell is a charming host’.

Manuscript entitled 'A Common-Place Book, after the Plan recommended by Mr. Locke'. Written below this, 'The Collection was commenced at an early Age, and consequently in the first Pages many Things are inserted, which might as well, and without any Injury to the Book, have been omitted'.

Headings include 'Love', 'Mediocrity', 'Laugh', 'Deluge', 'Liberty', 'Sleep', 'Bees', 'East India Company' ('Surely, as Sovereigns, the company are monopolising against their own interest...', 'Gold',' Women', 'Wit and Humour', 'Impeachment' etc. Beneath these are passages from sources including Shakespeare, Addison, The Spectator and The Tatler, Burney, especially Camilla, Pope, Johnson (especially the Dictionary) and Rousseau.

Much of the material dates from Owen's time at Trinity College; several verses have a strong Cambridge connection, for example 'Song Imitated from Voltaire by Mr Rough, Trin. Coll. Cant.', presumably William Rough. Owen includes his own compositions; his verseas are frequently addressed to young women, eg. 'To Miss Susan Moore. Verses addressed to a beautiful young Lady, on her leaving the pleasant village of Aspley', 'Ode to a young Lady (the same as above) oppressed with the Head-ache', and 'On Miss Stephens, of the Theatre-Royal Covent Garden'. Catherine Philips and 'Miss Fanny Fripp' are each the subject of several poems.

Text is arranged in double columns until around the end of Owen's time at Cambridge; thenceforth, sentences are written across the whole page, but Locke's structure is retained.

Concerning the papers of his great-aunt, Fanny Burney.