There was in Edinburgh another forum for male intellectual emulation where Wilde
and Constant could compete with one another. This was the Dialectic Literary Society,
about which we learn a little from Frederic Macfarlan’s letter of 1824 from which I
quoted earlier. Wilde and Constant were both members, along with several other friends
from the Speculative Society. Histories of Edinburgh make no mention of a society of
precisely that name. The foundation of the ‘Dialectic Society’ is normally given as 1787,
and that of the ‘Literary Society’ (of which Sir Walter Scott was a member in 1789–90) is
likewise believed to have been after 1785 when Constant left the city.^56 However the
information given on this period in Macfarlan’s letter is convincing, and there is little
cause to doubt the accuracy of his statements. In all probability the two societies had their
common origin in the ‘Dialectic Literary Society’ which was clearly in existence during
and perhaps before the period 1783–5. In Macfarlan’s letter we at last see Constant
himself making an impression as a public speaker, even making allowances for a degree
of flattery and Macfarlan’s eagerness to be remembered by a now famous man:
Brooklyn by New York, Respected Friend, Benjamin Constant,
After forty years, it will be difficult, I fear, to recall to thy
recollection the name Frederic Macfarlan. We were then members
of the Dialectic Literary Society, in the University of Edinburgh.
We were indeed but little, together, except while in the Society.
There however we really met. For though there were many bright
geniuses, & most of them fine scholars, among the first in Edinr for
our time of life; & though all were more or less professedly friends
of Liberty; yet none equalled in proper views of liberty, the
following 3; Malcom Laing, since, an active Lawyer, & writer of
the History of Mary, Queen of Scots. Benjamin Constant, who
then, though but young & only lately come to our country was not
behind any of us, not only in the love of real liberty, but in the
facility of displaying this, in all his speeches; & that too in a
Language not Vernacular. This gave me, & I trust to all, no small
hopes of his future activity in the field of Eloquence, for Genuine
Liberty & the fact has abundantly proved this, in the many &
arduous struggles, in which he has encountered every kind of
opposition to the real rights of Man, Frederic Macfarlan was the
third. Who indeed had this advantage of his fellow students &
members of society, in having been, before that, in America, where
he was much inflamed with a Love for liberty; which flame still
burns.^57The Reverend Thomas Macknight, in his memoir on the Speculative
Society is more measured in his appraisal of Constant’s powers as an
orator at this time:
Benjamin constant 58Benjamin constant 58