One sour example will prevent more vice
Than all the best persuasions in the world.
Rough rigour looks out right, and still prevails:
Smooth mildness looks too many ways to thrive.
Wherefore, since Mordred's crimes have wrong'd the laws
In so extreme a sort, as is too strange,
Let right and justice rule with rigour's aid,
And work his wrack at length, although too late;
That damning laws, so damned by the laws,
He may receive his deep deserved doom.
So let it fare with all that dare the like:
Let sword, let fire, let torments be their end.
Severity upholds both realm and rule.

One feature remains to be spoken of, a feature which redeems the play
from an otherwise deserved obscurity. We refer to the author's creation
of characters fit for tragedy. Sackville's royalties are dull folk,
great only by rank. Arthur and Mordred are men of a grander breed, men
worthy to rise to heights and win the attention of the world by their
fall. Nor does the author forget the artistic strength achieved by
contrast. Arthur is depicted as a veteran warrior, contented with his
conquests, and anxious to establish peace within his kingdom. He is
remorseful, too, for past sins, and is ready to make amends by yielding
up to Mordred the coveted throne--until that prince's insolence makes
compromise impossible. Mordred, on the other hand, stands before us as
the young, ambitious, dauntless aspirant to power, scorning cautious
fears, flinging back every overture for peace, reaching forward to the
goal of his hate even across the confines of life. At the risk of
quoting too much we append (with the omission of two interruptions)
Mordred's speech in favour of resisting his father: