Each plate has an accompanying leaf with decorative border and reproduction of coats of arms printed on blue paper.
Portraits and memoirs of Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, Charles Earl Grey, Sir Rorbert Peel, William Wilberforce, John George Lambton, Earl of Durham, Daniel O'Connell, John Charles Spencer, Earl Spencer, Baron James Abercromby Dunfermline, John Russell, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, Marquis of Lansdowne, Thomas William Coke, Earl of Leicester, John Singleton Copley, Baron Lyndhurst, and Henry Brougham, Baron Brougham and Vaux.
Illustrations by W. H. Mote, Charles Edward Wagstaff, Henry R. Cook, William Henry Egleton, William Holl, Francis Holl, Henry Byran Hall, John Henry Robinson, Joseph Brown; after Richard Robert Scanlan, James Stewart, Andrew Morton, and Felix Roffe.