- On Constant’s period in Edinburgh, see the following articles by C.P.Courtney:
‘Autour de Benjamin Constant: lettres inédites de Juste de Constant à Sir Robert
Murray Keith’, Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France, 67e année (janvier-mars
1967), pp. 97–100—henceforth: Courtney (1967; 1); ‘New light on Benjamin
Constant: three unpublished letters from Juste de Constant to J.-B.Suard’,
Neophilologus, LI (1967), pp. 10–14—Courtney (1967; 2); ‘Isabelle de Charrière
and the “Character of H.B.Constant”: a false attribution’, French Studies, XXXVI
(1982), pp. 282–9—Courtney (1982); ‘Benjamin Constant seen by his father: letters
from Louis-Arnold-Juste to Samuel de Constant, 1780–1796’, French Studies,
XXXIX (1985), pp. 276–84—Courtney (1985); and ‘An eighteenth-century
education: Constant at Erlangen and Edinburgh (1782–5)’, in Rousseau et le dix-
huitième siècle: Essays in Memory of R.A. Leigh, ed. M.Hobson, J.Leigh and
R.Wokler, Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1992, forthcoming—Courtney (1992);
and by Dennis Wood: ‘Constant’s Cahier rouge: new findings’, French Studies,
XXXVIII (1984), pp. 13–29—henceforth: Wood (1984); ‘Constant in Edinburgh:
eloquence and history’, French Studies, XL (1986), pp. 151–66—Wood (1986); and
‘Constant in Britain 1780–1787: a provisional chronology’, ABC, no. 7 (1987), pp.
7–16—Wood (1987). A good introduction to the intellectual atmosphere in
eighteenth-century Edinburgh and in Scotland generally is provided in A Hotbed of
Genius. The Scottish Enlightenment 1730–1790, ed. David Daiches, Peter Jones and
Jean Jones, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986. - Courtney (1967; 1), p. 99, note 5. It seems that Constant made other living
arrangements later. In an entry in his Journaux intimes for 1804 he says: ‘Twenty
years ago today 9 August I was in Scotland, quite happy, living by turn with friends
and with an excellent family in the country, three miles from Edinburgh’ (Constant,
Œuvres, p. 351). Constant lived with the Wauchope family at Niddrie, a little to the
south-east of the city, during the vacations, it seems. In Ma Vie Constant records
returning to Niddrie in August 1787 to see ‘the Wauchopes who had been so
hospitable to me when I was a student’ (Constant, Œuvres, p. 156). James
Wauchope was, perhaps, one of the ‘friends’ Constant shared lodgings with during
term, and during the summer recess he stayed with Wauchope’s family in the
country. James Wauchope was the same age as Constant, was enrolled as an
undergraduate in 1783–4, 1784–5 and 1788–9, and in 1789 was called to the Scottish
Bar. He was a member of the Speculative Society from 1787 to 1789, and died at the
early age of 30 in 1797. When Constant wrote in the Journaux intimes ‘several of
my friends are dead’, he must have had James Wauchope in mind, for he added:
‘The Niddrie family has renewed itself. The new generation doen’t know me’
(Constant, Œuvres, p. 351). See Matriculation Roll and History of the Speculative
Society of Edinburgh from its Institution in M.DCC.LXIV., Edinburgh, 1845, p. 181
(henceforth: HSSE followed by page number). - From 1791 to 1793 (HSSE, p. 29).
- Ma Vie, ed. C.P.Courtney, p. 9.
- Courtney (1967; 1), p. 98.
- Courtney (1967; 1), p. 99.
- Courtney (1985), p. 283, note 3.
List of abbreviations 273