Verse is retained. But--and the thoughtful reader will discern that the
same fatal influence is at work here as elsewhere--Hughes relapses,
deliberately, into the artificial speech of _Appius and Virginia_.
Alliteration charms him with its too artful aid. Nowhere has R.B. such
rant as falls from the pen of Hughes. In the last battle between Arthur
and Mordred 'boist'rous bangs with thumping thwacks fall thick', while
the younger leader rages over the field 'all fury-like, frounc'd up with
frantic frets'. Guenevera revives her declining wrath with this
invocation of supernatural aid:

Come, spiteful fiends, come, heaps of furies fell,
Not one by one, but all at once! my breast
Raves not enough: it likes me to be fill'd
With greater monsters yet. My heart doth throb,
My liver boils: somewhat my mind portends,
Uncertain what; but whatsoever, it's huge.

A fairer example, however, of Hughes's style may be taken from Cador's
speech urging Arthur to adopt severe measures against Mordred (_Act III,
Scene 1_):

No worse a vice than lenity in kings;
Remiss indulgence soon undoes a realm.
He teacheth how to sin that winks at sins,
And bids offend that suffereth an offence.
The only hope of leave increaseth crimes,
And he that pardoneth one, embold'neth all
To break the laws. Each patience fostereth wrong.
But vice severely punish'd faints at foot,
And creeps no further off than where it falls.