The first table of contents begins on folio 1 verso and is numbered 1-79, leaving the remainder of the page blank.

Because of this peculiar numbering in the two tables of contents, Willa McClung Evans, a scholar who earlier studied the manuscript, surmised it might have been a conglomeration of several manuscripts "representing perhaps the tastes of three owners of the volume or of three periods in the life of a single owner."

[8] In 1973 the manuscript underwent conservation by Carolyn Horton and Associates which included numbering the folios.

Cutts discerns that scribe must have had access to other manuscripts circulating among court and theatrical musicians based on the variety of composer names associated with both spheres.

[9][10][1] An organist and musicologist, Rimbault took a keen interest in English music and voraciously collected rare books, scores, and valuable manuscripts.

[11]The manuscript along with about 300 lots were purchased by Philadelphia-born financier Joseph W. Drexel, who had already amassed a large music library.

Already in 1856, Rimbault (at the time still in possession of the manuscript) identified the actor "Jack Wilson" as the composer of several songs "as is proved by a book of manuscript music, as old in some parts as the time of the English Civil War, although in others it seems to have been written in the reign of Charles II of England.

"[5] As an example of a typically puzzling situation, Jorgens takes the song "O tell mee damon canst thou proue."

Jorgens concludes that only with the availability of many manuscript facsimiles and early printed editions can correct composer attributions be made.

[14] Evans remarks upon the song "Why soe pall and wan fond louer" and notes that it was probably written and known prior to its appearance in John Suckling's play Aglaura, based on the character Orsames's comments to it: "I little foolish counsel, Madame, I gave / a Friend of mine four or fives years ago / When he was falling into a consumption."

Evans notes that the song was easy to perform, so that it could be sung by regular members of the acting company (rather than a professional singer).

[18][19] Musicologist Vincent J. Duckles notes the first song, "Beauty which all men admire" must have had some currency as it is found in two other contemporaneous manuscripts.

[21] Duckles finds it "particularly interesting because it is written for a tenor voice, joined by the bass in a 2-part chorus in the last section "At last when as our quire wants breath .

"[22] Cutts regarded the marginal note on 124v "he/my/King/too" as evidence that the compiler was royalist in sympathy and identified himself with the song's denunciation of the adversaries of King Charles I of England.

[5][1] Evans notes that the text of "A Loose Sarabande" by Richard Lovelace offers textual variants.