Accompanying this note, I send you a copy of the first volume of my collection "Poetic Works," Just published, in the hope that, before the shallop of Charon1 shall have touched the shores of New Jersey, you will find something in it & reward the swallow-dip of a moment's freedom from the oppressions of age, and say, with Bully Bottom, when you lay it aside, "I shall desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Cobweb,"2—on this or the other side of the river.
Please accept it with my compliments and my best wishes for your welfare
I am yours very truly, Frank CowanCorrespondent:
Frank Cowan
(1844–1905) was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and later moved to
Washington, D.C., where he studied law while working in a clerk position on the
Committee of Patents under his father, Edgar Cowan (1815–1885), a United
States Senator from Pennsylvania. Frank would go on to work as a lawyer and to
study medicine at Georgetown Medical College. After moving back to his native
Greensburg, he started a newspaper focused on Western Pennsylvania, titled Frank Cowan's Paper. His three-volume work The Poetical Works of Frank Cowan was published by the
Oliver Publishing House in Greensburg in 1892.