IZAAK WALTON AND HIS FRIENDS 6i 



over it fearlessly, disdaining " to alight where a 

 foreigner might prefer entrusting his neck to the 

 fidelity of his feet rather than to those of his 

 horse." 



It is dangerous riding in Dovedale. There 

 was a bad road to Reynard's Cave, and it was 

 there that a Dean of Clogher lost his life many 

 years ago. His horse was carrying him, and a 

 lady behind him, when it lost its foothold and 

 rolled over a precipice. The Dean was killed, 

 but the lady's hair saved her by becoming 

 entangled in some bushes and arresting her 

 descent. 



Cotton played at bowls, having a bowling-green 

 near Beresford Hall. He says of himself : " Though 

 I am no very good bowler, I am not totally de- 

 voted to my own pleasure ; but that I have also 

 some regard to other men's ! " He also, we may 

 fairly infer from what we have before said, knew 

 something of billiards and probably played with 

 Walton at the then popular game of shovel-board. 

 Sir Aston Cockayne, his cousin, has in some highly 

 eulogistic verses claimed, and rightly so, that 

 Cotton should be considered as a good all-round 

 man. Cotton wrote complimentary verses to him 

 on his Tragedy of Ovid. In February, 1687, Cotton 

 died in the parish of St James, Westminster, it 

 is generally supposed of a fever, without having 

 attained his coveted age of sixty years — "try to 



