Mss Eur F699/1/4/11/8

Bound notebook volume with key (with attached label: ‘Key of Ld. Canning’s Notebook. M. Maclagan Trinity College Oxford’). At the front of the notebook, which has been used as a commonplace book, are notes on a variety of subjects, followed by blank pages. Later pages consist of notes on Indian related matters.

1. Notes at the front of the volume relate to a variety of subjects, including subjects of a religious, historical, political and literary nature, and include notes on various publications. A few examples of the notes include notes headed: ‘Old Maxim of the Hungarian Diet’, ‘H. of Lords. & F.O.’ [House of Lords and Foreign Office], ‘Battles in the Peninsula’, ‘Revolution of 1688’, ‘Jane Eyre’, ‘Shakespeare’, ‘Foreign Alliances’, ‘Glass and Glazing’, ‘Arts and Literature of France’; and notes on the current Pope and Cardinals; and notes on religious practices in the Greek Church, Roman Church, Churches in England, and Muslim religious practices.

2. Later pages, from the middle on the volume, are India related and include notes headed: ‘India (Miscelle’a.)’ [miscellanea]; ‘Expenditure & of Table’; and ‘Ranee of Jhansi’.

3. The volume also includes some notes inserted by Canning's biographer Michael Maclagan on small slips of paper, and at the back of the volume there were 14 loose papers inserted, notes by Canning and cuttings from newspapers and another publication. These include:

Newspaper cutting from the Times’, September 1847, regarding ‘the choice of some of the subjects of paintings to decorate the news Houses of Parliament’.

Cutting from unidentified publication, in which the writer objects to a picture in the new House of the Lords, which has been ‘assigned the place of distinction’ immediately over the Queen’s throne, depicting the baptism of King Ethelbert, with Augustine performing the ceremony. Handwritten note reads ‘Rec’d. anonymously in 1848 – with the following query: “The Protestants of the Empire (who will chiefly pay for this work of art) mostly respectfully enquire how the mistake could have been allowed?”’.

Newspaper cutting from the Morning Chronicle by ‘Ecclesiae Anglicanae Laicus, Diocese of Lincoln’, dated 26 January 1848, regarding the distinction between Anglican Prayers for the Dead and the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory

Notes 'An appeal on behalf of Ch.[Church] Govt.[Government] addressed to the Prelates, Clergy of the United Church' Review of the Athenaeum No. 670 [by William Taylor, Aug 1840].’

Notes relating to Jesuits, Paris 1844.

Newspaper cutting: ‘Curious Calculation’, predicting the year of the death of the Pope. From Dublin University Magazine [1847]

Notes headed ‘Persons of Great Age’.

Other miscellaneous notes, including relating to India.