With adfront, and show of dreadful fight.
Then new careers they take, wheeling about
In various circles and self-ending orbs,
In all the mazy arts and forms of war;
Now turn their backs, and now afresh attack:
At length in peaceful order all march off.
It seems that our tournaments, so much in fashion till queen Elizabeth’s time, are remainders of these warlike diversions; and the triple order, by which they were conducted, may possibly be imitated in some degree by the common figure in dancing, called the hedge, or the hay; both which I suppose are derived from the Saxon hæg, perhaps from the Latin agger.
We passed by the spring of old Wintringham and the Marsh at the mouth of the Ankham, which is a vast tract of land left by the sea; and came to Feriby sluice, a stately bridge of three arches, with sluices for voidance of the water into the sea, but now broken down and lying in dismal ruins by the negligence of the undertakers: whence travellers are obliged to pass the river in a paltry short boat, commanded by a little old deaf fellow with a long beard: into this boat you descend, by the steep of the river, through a deep mirey clay, full of stones and stakes; nor is the ascent on the other side any better, both dangerous and difficult. This, with the hideous ruins of the bridge, like the picture of hell gates in Milton, and the terrible roar of the water passing through it, fitly represented Virgil’s description of Charon’s ferry: nor would a poet wish for a better scene to heighten his fancy, were he to paint out the horrors of the confines of hell.
Hinc via Tartarei quæ fert Acherontis ad undas.
Turbidus hic cœno vastaque voragine gurges