There had been established at Royston a Book Club, and twice a year
the members of it were invited to a tea party at the largest room the
little town supplied, and a regular debate was held. In former times
this debate had been honoured by no less a man than Robert Hall. * *
To one of these meetings my brother was invited, and I as a sort of
satellite to him. There was a company of forty-four gentlemen and
forty-two ladies. The question discussed was--'Is private affection
inconsistent with universal benevolence?'" This question, it seemed,
was meant to involve the merits of Godwin's Political Justice, which
was making a stir just then, and among those who took part besides the
writer of this diary were Benjamin Flower, editor and proprietor of the
_Cambridge Intelligencer_, and also four or five ministers of the best
reputation in the place. "Yet," adds the writer, then a young man but
fluent speaker, "I obtained credit, and the solid benefit of the good
opinion of Mr. Nash." Among other names was that of George Dyer,
author of a History of Cambridge, and a biography of Mr. Robinson,
successor to Robert Hall, at Cambridge, a biography which Wordsworth
pronounced to be the best in the language.

At least on two occasions the celebrated Robert Hall, then a Baptist
minister at Cambridge, attended the Club and took a leading part in the
debates. From one of the old minute books of the Club [for a perusual
of this book I am indebted to Miss Pickering, whose father's shop in
John Street was the depot of the Club till recent years] for the years
1786-90, I find that on two occasions the question for debate stands in
the name of Mr. Hall, and the subjects were, on the first
occasion--"Does extensive knowledge of the world tend to increase or
diminish our virtue?" and on the second occasion the subject
was--"Whether mankind are at present in a state of moral improvement."

{28} At the monthly debates it was the practice of the Club, having
debated some stated subject, to vote upon it, and enter the result in
the margin of the minute book, and many of these entries are curious
and instructive. Against the second question standing in the name of
the famous preacher, there is no such entry, but against the first, the
opinion of the forum seems to have been that an extensive knowledge of
the world tends to diminish our virtue, but it was only by a "majority
of 1" that this opinion was arrived at.

This old minute book th