Yet such was the ardor for study at this time, that Speed in his Chronicle informs us, there were then thirty thousand students in the university of Oxford alone.

What was the occupation of all these young men?
To learn very bad Latin, and still worse logic.
In 1364, the commons petitioned, that, in consideration of the preceding pestilence, such persons as possessed manors holding of the king in chief, and had let different leases without obtaining licenses, might continue to exercise the same power, till the country were become more populous.[**] The commons were sensible, that this security of possession was a good means for rendering the kingdom prosperous and flourishing; yet durst not apply, all at once, for a greater relaxation of their chains.
* Rymer, vol.vi.p.

654.
** Cotton, p.

97.
There is not a reign among those of the ancient English monarchs, which deserves more to be studied than that of Edward III., nor one where the domestic transactions will better discover the true genius of that kind of mixed government, which was then established in England.

The struggles with regard to the validity and authority of the Great Charter were now over: the king was acknowledged to lie under some limitations: Edward himself was a prince of great capacity, not governed by favorites, nor led astray by any unruly passion, sensible that nothing could be more essential to his interests than to keep on good terms with his people: yet, on the whole, it appears that the government at best was only a barbarous monarchy, not regulated by any fixed maxims, or bounded by any certain undisputed rights, which in practice were regularly observed.