There is Light at the end of the tunnel

Whilst I await, the funding of the Young Pretender Film, about Bonnie Prince Charlie, to be made manifest, like some lost miracle, for it is not forthcoming, I have been preparing the course work on 'The Scottish Enlightenment'. Of course obviously at some point this research could grow into a film in the future. For now while my feet recover ( a long story) from helping the charity 'Save the Children,' I am pursuing the higher climbs of academic research. Here are some of the class notes.

Apologies for the lack of blogs in the last few months, but due to having to run around like a blue assed fly, for ventures that resulted in no cash, I have had to do other things. Needless to say, you will find the following essay has parallels with many things that are happening throughout the world today in 2013. (Some corrections are necessary as a 'work in progress' and the number of commas needed below is a matter of grammatical error for the expert or folly for the faint hearted. I make no apologies. but assume it is better to get it on paper, than quibble about it's sum total of omissions.)

What is 'The Scottish Enlightenment' you ask? It was responsible for many of the world's important inventions, the most famous inventor being James Watt, who designed the steam engine. Science was not the only beneficiary, moral philosophy economics, architecture, and art, were all effected by the brainstorm that was unleashed in Scotland between 1720 to 1790. It was to produce, Adam Smith, the economist of the book the Wealth of Nations, the architect, Robert Adam,  responsible for neo-classical buildings, David Hume, the Father of Modern Philosophy.  The list of inventors in the field of mathematics, engineering is too great to list here, but they were responsible for the next generation of Scottish inventors, namely, Alexander Graham Bell for the telephone, John Logie Baird for the Television. Alexander Fleming for Penicillin. This amazing concentration of inventions from people who were educated in Scotland, spanned almost 200 years, in intellectual activity. Today in it's shadow the modern world was created.

The Roots of the Scottish Enlightenment

If we liken the Scottish Enlightenment to a tree that grew many offshoots and branches, it was to have roots in the era before it, which had seen the success of the Protestant Religion burgeon into a force that had swallowed both Church and state so that the fine line between the legal and fiscal functions of government was inextricably linked with the morals invoked by the Church. This began to have a stifling effect on the population who could not move without being accused of fornication or at worst blasphemy. Whilst the Church had started out as a force for change and equality, after the death of John Knox, the Church began to be stultified, eroding the freedoms it once sought. The very intellectuals who had been created by the ‘Parish’ free schools system created by John Knox in his Book of Discipline, railed against the imposition of Church doctrines on secular life. The Scottish Enlightenment was to become almost a counter revolution against the hierarchical nature of the priestly imposition on the state conducted from the pulpit.

The era of the persecution of witches, which was arguably used as a means of social control, instilled fear into the population to abide by the growing repression contained in the New Calvinism, which become bereft of the Freedoms first espoused by John Knox.

JOHN KNOX AND THE SCHOOL ACT

John Knox doctrines, were to revolutionise Scottish society. In the Book of Discipline, he proposed the Parish School, should to be free and open to all parishioners. This meant education was accessible to the population in a way that had been denied to them hitherto the Schools Act of 1696. The parish schools became very successful so much so, they were a significant factor in creation of the 'Scottish Enlightenment'' because they produced a highly literate population. The statistics bear this out, in that Scotland was to have the highest number of people per head of population, who could read and write in Europe. It is estimated that the total number of people who could read and write, including numeracy, were to be as high as 90 per cent of the population. This is an amazing number and even modern states would be hard pushed to create this kind of statistic. John Knox's Parish school meant that all classes, from all strata's of society could participate in gaining a higher education, once they completed the basic parish school curriculums.

In his vision, to create a society where every child would be able to read the bible, he was also creating a society with a highly educated work force, who were able to conduct themselves in a trade or craft but, also at the same time converse, read and write about the higher matters in life of moral philosophy, art and religion.

The epitome of a Scottish Enlightenment and pupil of the parish was in fact Robert Burns the apparent 'unschooled' poet, who had been taught by a Parish teacher, in the classics of the Latin and Greek tradition. He was to become one of the key voices of The Scottish Enlightenment'.  John Knox had succeeded in his wish of creating a 'bible reading' population, but in doing so he had also created a population intelligent enough to question his creed. John Knox became of victim of his own success. He created a literate population who were ready to question his judgements, but his legacy remains today, in that he laid the basis for the principle of free, state run schools with  easy access from the general population. ( These schools, were paid for by Church collections, as well as local government donations. They put in place the Parish Teacher, to provide general knowledge, the classics and numeracy as well as the Bible. This was free and open to everyone including women and girls.)

Of this change in the People's access to education, Adam Smith said in his Wealth of Nations, that the Parish school system had taught ‘almost the whole common people to read, and a very great proportion of them to write and account. ‘

The Influence of New Ideas

Prior to 1700, the trial and execution of Thomas Aitkenhead was to galvanise, the educated Scottish middle classes, against the cruelty and absolutism of the law of blasphemy.

Thomas Aitkenhead had criticised the rule of God, in a Bible class, but the way he said this, was open to interpretation. What was an off the cuff remark, became an accusation against him, when he was accused of blasphemy, a crime that held the penalty of death. After his imprisonment and many months of trial, amid his own confession to love God’s laws, he was sentenced to death. Many lawyers and legal brains like John Locke had tried to intercede in the trial to prevent the young boys death, but the Church Elders, who were also part of the Government were adamant that the law of Blasphemy must be upheld.

The trial was very unpopular amongst the people, but despite some protests, the boy was executed. The resulting fall out with the Church elite, brought up many issues about the correctness of having a powerful Church that was intervening in the laws of the state. It meant that many intellectuals began to call for the separation of Church and state, because it seemed that extreme interpretations of the Church with regard to Blasphemy were not in line with the secular interpretations of criminal behaviour. Should the Church and State be separate? By the end of the Scottish Enlightenment,  the whole structure of Scottish Government was to change.

End of Witchcraft

Witchcraft, or rather the fear of it, was the force to be reckoned with throughout the previous, 16^th and 17^th centuries, particularly in Scotland when a wave of burnings and executions were common place in the guise of the 'Witch Hunt'.  Witch hunting had become part of the armoury of Religion, to instil fear into the congregation to uphold the values of the Church, but in doing so the Church lost the values of the Bible.  The era of superstition based on an idea of witchcraft, amid cries of ‘Burn Her, Burn Her’, was to become a thing of the past, giving way to the forces of reason. But political changes going on in England were first to make a big impact on Scotland, prior to the Scottish Enlightenment.

UNION OF THE CROWNS AND PARLIAMENTS

Before 1700, England was experiencing what was known as the ‘Killing Times’ from 1667 to 1680 under the rule of Charles the second. It was to end in 1688 with the ‘Glorious Revolution’ and the enthronement of William of Orange in a bid to bring about the end of the Stuart Monarchy. It by some quirk of fate brought the lineage of the royal line of the Kings of Scotland and England together. Before long it was to herald the Union of Parliament's between Scotland and England. This move was hastened by an Economic disaster in Scotland in 1695, known as the Darien Scheme. It was a complete monumental catastrophe for Scottish trade and wealth. The scheme was supposed to allow Scotland to claim a patch of land in Panama that would control world trade. The idea of this excited the Scottish gentry’s sense of worth, but sent them over a precipice, like Lemmings. In their attempt to get a piece of it, they invested large sums of money, to take several ships, with an army to win the land from the Natives there. They were to raise and squander 400,000, half of the total money in the country of Scotland at the time.

It ended in tears, the Scots failed to claim the land in the ensuing battles that took place with the Natives and Spanish, who also believed they were the owners of the land in Panama. The creators of the Darien scheme, Paterson and Fletcher, were defeated. They left behind them broken investors, with the economy in Scotland unable to mend the void of cash.

So much so, that when the suggestion came up to Unite the Parliaments, many of those who had invested in the Darien Scheme, were anxious to make gains from the more buoyant English economy, with its sprawling successful Empire of trade in both the East and West of the World.

Union of Parliaments

In 1707, therefore the stage was set for a Union of Economies that was tied together in the Union of Parliaments. It was brokered by the aggressive Hanoverian, the Marquis of Queensberry, who went around the Scottish aristocracy, trying to get them to sign the act of parliament that would seal the fates of the two countries. It was not agreed upon by the people, who raised a mob in Edinburgh, which effectively ran the gentry out of Parliament. In the end the Treaty of Union was signed in secret in a cellar in Edinburgh, before the Marquis and his cronies, were run out of town by an ensuing rabble. For his pains the Marquis received 12000 pounds, for arranging it all, by the English authorities.

In the book ‘How the Scots Invented the Modern World’,  Arthur Herman claims that the Treaty of Union meant that Scotland became wealthy for over 20 years and that this stable economy created the foundations for the Scottish Enlightenment.

But he points out that the taxes needed to support the Union were unpopular with the people, because they were much higher than the taxes of the previous Independent Scotland. So when Bonnie Prince Charlie, raised his head above the parapet to reclaim the Ancient Regime, he gained some support, because many thought he might reverse the Union of the countries and bring Scotland back to its own Nation.

Economic  Stability

Herman claims further, that by not spending money and time on governing, the Scots got the best of both Worlds, in that they got peace and order from a strong administrative state, with the freedom to develop and innovate without undue interference. Further Herman says that the Treaty of Union destroyed an Independent Kingdom and put Scotland’s economy into a tail spin, but it turned out to be the making of the 'Scottish Enlightenment.'

The statistics relating to the Economy at the time do seem to bear that out. Grain exports doubled. Lowland farmers were faced with falling prices due to a grain surplus. Glasgow merchants entered the Atlantic trade. By 1715 they were taking 15% of the tobacco trade and within 2 decades they were running it. Then by 1755 the value of Scottish exports had doubled.

Herman’s by line on this, is that despite the economic boom, it was something more intrinsic to Scottish culture that actually created the Scottish Enlightenment – the Universities and the Law courts unaffected by the Union were the driving force for The Scottish Enlightenment. In the coming weeks we will see how they achieved it.

What ever the ferment that caused 'The Scottish Enlightenment' the ingredients of the bubbling pot, in which it was contained, rose up from a simmer at the beginning of the 1700's to become a bubbling boiling mass of intellectual activity,  in the 1760's to 1860's, resulting in many of the inventions, we now consider made the modern world.

For more information, with entertaining video's on the people who created 'The Scottish Enlightenment' you can see a helpful website  here

SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

Strathclyde University 2013

 

Recommended Reading List.

‘How the Scots Invented the Modern World’ by Arthur Herman ( New York Times Best Seller)

‘Scots who Enlightened the World’ by Andrew Ferguson

 

 

 

Cannes Film Festival 2013 - Has the battle been lost for Women?

 

Here's me pictured with actress Gabrille Scharnitsky, who played a double agent in the spy film we screened at Cannes, called Third Falcon

 

This year I opted not to spend my valuable time looking for tickets for the Red Carpet screenings. I went there with a totally different mind-set prioritizing the little understood aspect of the film business of sales. Due to the recession, my primary responsibility was to make sure the 3 screenings we had booked for the 3 films by Palm Tree Entertainment were well attended by industry buyers, and that ultimately these films will be sold in several territories. This is a big and difficult job when you are competing with over 3000 other sellers. The ability of a film to make an impact is only as good as the marketing and press preparations before the festival. You can get an update on the films we screened at Cannes 2013 at our website here. I’m the co-owner shareholder of Palm Tree Entertainment, alongside the Managing Director, Robbie Moffat.

Fortunately I have attended 15 Cannes Film festivals, so at the very least people know about our company and in fact we have a coterie of buyers who regularly look in to see our films. It is heartening that phone calls made in previous years do result in good screening attendances presently. But our films are independently submitted to the commercial market at Cannes and not the Festival, which is a completely different organisation. We don’t submit many of our films to the Festival unless we have a film with the gravitas in subject matter with good performances we submit it to the festival. As yet none of our films have been selected. Not that I’m complaining, the Marche Du Film, which is a separate organisation to the Festival houses the biggest film market in the world below the under belly of the Festival. I often think how strange it is that the press rarely venture into the vast ‘selling’ halls, where large and small distributors compete cheek by jowl with each other.

So what was the atmosphere in the market like this year? After being there for 10 minutes in the heat of the Riviera one can usually sense the mood of the crowds, just by the speed of the walkers in the street and their general demeanour. If they are sad, angry or hopeful, the crowds are like a barometer of the full sense of the Film Market. Often as the heat and dust hits your nostrils the mood on La Croisette is sensed in a visceral way. Listen and you will hear films being discussed, lauded or dismissed out of hand. In Cannes 2013 the street was strangely buoyant, an odd feeling in a highly charged economic recession, but buyers and sellers were taking a smart approach to the down turn. It was business as usual; there was hope in their eyes, which had not been seen in earlier years. What was different? It seems many of us had made the switch to finally accepting that much of film distribution would be done by downloads, after the expensive cinema window showcases are accomplished. In the fall of the DVD retail outlets in the high street, DVD sellers were not abundant, as if it was a given, that they had switched to creating bright accessible film download websites in the last year. The Cannes weather compounded the confirmation that ‘Download’ was the way forward. As buyers and sellers got drenched in full days of strangely bitter post global warming rain, they moaned that they could be selling their films at home via internet direct to the buyers computer without all the expense or the misery of global travel to a place that was not equipped to handle bad weather in sodden pavilion style ‘tents’. There is nothing like soaked feet and ruined shoe interior linings in drenched wet puddles, to sharpen the mind.

Independent Sellers and even film producing Buyers, will always be critical of the main Film Festival because ultimately the ‘Big’ Films are their competitors and often the public are denied knowledge of ‘Smaller’ films because of the loud noise the other films make by being selected for the Festival. But the Festival itself could make more concessions to the Independent Lobby, who after all pay for the Festival via their high cost registration passes to both the market and the Festival. Instead the Festival treats the Market attenders, often famous film makers in their own right, as second class citizens, making the festival run parallel to the market without much cross fertilisation between the domains. This kind of division is not healthy for business creativity.  It was also touched upon in Alex Baldwin’s HBO documentary, ‘Seduced and Abandoned’, which portrays the funny, gritty side of the festival from the point of view of a fading film producer.

Surprising the French, despite the cultural routes of its old eighteen century revolution up hold a kind of film making ‘Ancient Regime’, where the ‘beautiful’ people are feted and often film screening invites are only available, in the main to a wealthy French elite. A Red Carpet paparazzi agreed with me when he confessed he spent much of the day filming unknown models appearing as ‘film stars’ going along the main Competition Carpet. He showed me his laptop record of his days shoot, where he would have to skip expensively dressed ‘Models’ before he would find his pictures of the real movie stars, who were attending for Competition Premieres. It seems in this case all that glitters is not ‘Gold’. This kind of thing also pervades the Movie making Matrix.

Women and Cannes

It does seem the Cannes Film Festival promoters do listen to the bloggers, because Women were treated with much more respect both at street level and in the Competition. The Palm D’or reflected a small shift in attitude, when the Film Blue is the Warmest Colour was chosen for the prize, directed by a man I may add. ( More on this at the BBC website here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22676798 )

But this gesture to feminism was marred by the highly charged sexual content, which marginalised the impact of bringing women into the fold of the ‘Competition’. It would have been better if the efforts of the only female Film Director in the Competition, Sophie Coppola for her film Bling Ring had been rewarded with a prize, to show that positive access was being granted to women. This again was not the case, the worldwide statistic for Women Film director’s remains at 5% and there does not seem to be any scheme within the Festival directed to correct it. Perhaps it is time that Women themselves made an impact on the Festival organisers by requesting an Award Section in the Competition for Women – an actual Female Film Director Award. This would go towards encouraging women Directors to submit and also it would guard against film selections who deliberately dismiss  women, due engrained prejudices in the process.

It was also noticeable that the breaking of the ‘International’ prostitution ring in Cannes had come into effect so that there was no evidence of it openly at street level, though an actor told me he suspected he may have blundered into it at ‘rooftop’ level when he was invited to a party.

Entry to the film industry for Women does seem to be confined to the acting side of things and often other types of work in the supervisory, producing and directing roles have been accessible to Women who in many cases were already connected to the film industry to their family or second generation routes. Such nepotistic structures do not help the Women, who in their own right have the talent to progress, if only the industry would just let them through the door.

As for myself I came into the film industry by my own efforts, with hard and often difficult work. I have directed 2 feature films and helped produce over 20 films. It was not easy and often I had to deflect the patronising and dismissive prejudices of men.

We are the sum of our own talents. For Women in particular in the film industry this must be the case, but the glass ceiling remains a heavy weight that refuses to budge, both inside and outside the industry.

The Cannes Film festival must be seen to lead the way in opening up the film industry to Women, but the attitudes within its own structure must be challenged by both men and women alike. Nothing will change if men keep selecting films which promote women as only sexual objects with characterisations portraying them as being incapable of participating equally in society, both in the job market and at home. Until that day, the prohibitive statistic for Women film directors will remain at the bottom of the work graph as only 5% of the film industry workforce.

Our films are distributed by the sales company Stealth Entertainment Group, and we assist their sales during film markets.

Written by Film Maker, Producer, Director, Writer and Mother

It's time for the Cannes Film Festival 2013

It's time for the Movie Scrum, the Cannes Film Festival, when the 'men' muscle in for the best deals they can find in the market, looking for the one film that will make their get rich quick schemes work. On the side lines women observe cautiously, side stepping the more than visible prostitution networks that sport long legged, high heeled women who look out of place among the creative low heeled, bohemian female film producers. Raw flesh meets the hard cashed intellectual side of the industry that sports the good script idea as the Goddess of Riches. Some will rise to the challenge.  Others will falter, at the point when their 'intellectual' property is picked over and gnawed at by a passing 'Movie Mogul'. But a good idea can 'ignite' and can make it's way to the 'studio floor'. All live in hope that, as they side swipe the competing executives and fawning lines of models, they might just make it to the movie 'touch down' of the year with a 'blockbuster'. They did have to block the busters to get there after all?

So what's on offer this year? You will find all you need to know at the Festival website here   My tip for the movie buff is 'Behind the Candelabra', starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, will give the Palme Dor a run for it's money. If it's official trailer available on You Tube is anything to go by, it puts Michael Douglas's voice back in the running with a convincing and touching portrayal of the love story of Liberace. But as the insiders know, the film that is scheduled for the  evening showing of the last Thursday of Festival is usually the one that gets the Palm D'or. Having not checked the schedule, I remain to be surprised.

For our fans, I'm sure there must be some, somewhere you can find out about Palm Tree Ents films here

In the mean time Distributor Le Pacte has 5 films in Competition this year despite the mag 'Indie Wire' having raised an eyebrow about the monopoly it has on the distribution process of the Award winning films.

As for the prostitution rings, according to an in depth article by Hollywood Reporter,  the trial of one of it's main instigators came to close this year. You can read all about it on their website here It remains to be seen if this will hold back the plethora of girls on the La Croisette or not.

In the meantime a new development for us all to negotiate is that Fashion TV, have taken over the roof suite of the Majestic Hotel for its shows, which allows celebrities to peek over the balcony for press photo calls prior to their Red Carpet dash. Tickets for this new enterprise range from between 300 Euros for one person to 1500 Euros for a table in the exclusive suite to watch the show.

Whatever the case we are all rolling up our sleeves for another 'bash' at the spotlight - Cannes 2013.

What the BBC don't want you to know is.....

I worked for the BBC as a freelance for 5 years between 1990 and 1995, in that time I encountered the worst kind of abuse from a BBC freelance presenter. He, by his own admission was a registered schizophrenic and somehow he managed to work with the likes of Kenny Everett  He arrived in the BBC station of Radio Solway while I was training there as a freelance for Community Radio in 1990 This was during the years when the stations staff were covering the Lockerbie Disaster trials. His name was John Langley and very quickly after a few weeks his schizophrenia become quite apparent. After a few months of working with him in the same office, we embarked on an assignment together which was very ill-advised on my part because he took the opportunity to attack me. Sadly it was quite a complicated form of a sexual attack and due to all it's permutations it was difficult to pursue a conviction at the time. What was achieved, by my doctor, was that Langley was sectioned under the mental health act then secured in a Psychiatric unit for about a year. This allowed me enough time to re-build my life, move home and my job to another training post within the BBC.

Langley made no secret that he was a schizophrenic and he even seemed to boost about it to his BBC colleagues whose liberal attitudes were in hindsight highly inappropriate with someone who was quite clearly a danger to himself and the public. He was a self confessed depressive and openly admitted to feeling suicidal. At the time he attacked me he was loaded up with the prescribed pill diazipan and in the proceeding days before the attack he had been threatening to take an over dose. How did such a person in such a state, end up working in a BBC radio station? Who had recommended him and how had he been chosen for the job? His mental state was certainly not taken into account and it seemed only that his broadcasting demeanor was all that was of concern to the BBC. What a pity the BBC decided to make a film about his new job as a photographer in 2008 considering that some of the women at this link here on his website could be at risk.

On another of his web sites here he clearly boosts about his BBC links, despite the correct decision by the station manager to fire him in 1991, he still seems to have 'connections' with the BBC.

What a pity that Officers at Operation Yewtree have failed to arrest him given the 'evidence' seen on his own website of what looks like pornography and not 'art. What is even of a greater shame is that some people in the BBC can't seem to know the difference, in that pornography could never be considered as an art form, could it?

BBC Presenters are only as good as their mental capacity for the job and their presentation skills alone are not only the prerequisite for their job. As the Saville cases prove, the protection of the public is and should have always be the prime importance. In failing to understand this the BBC, will continue to see, crime after crime unearthed, as it's own walls crumble in the process.

Anyone wishing to contact me for more information please email mairi.sutherland@gmail.com

Robert Burns - January's Blast

For those who see me as a rather feckless film producer, it might come as a surprise to some, that at University I studied the social and aesthetic response to industrialization. I wrote my dissertation about the Romantic Poets and the Crafts Movement. Here below is the 'proof of the pudding', written for last month of Burns Suppers, and also for my students at the Robert Burns class I teach.

The Man, the Myth, the Poetry

Robert Burns’ pastoral poems are exemplified by To a Mouse, To a Mountain Daisy, The Cotters Saturday Night and Now Westlin Winds. These poems speak to the rural forms in the landscape, rather than the contemporary man made forms that were to later be created by the industrial revolution.  Burns was glorifying the attributes of nature above all, as creations better than those created by man. His fellow poet Wordsworth further exemplifies these sentiments in the first line of his famous poem which starts ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats.....'

Robert Burns was along with Wordsworth considered to be one of the first Romantic poets. Due to Wordsworth living to 70 years old, he was a contemporary of Robert Burns, and since Wordsworth was defined as a Romantic poet, he also allowed Robert Burns to enter this category even although technically he was too early for the actual expression of Romanticism in the 18^th century. Indeed it is considered by some that Wordsworth may have meet Robert Burns in his early years and this is not so far-fetched in that they operated within some hundred miles on each other. Wordsworth based in Cumbria while Burns was on the Scottish borders in Dumfries.  It is recorded by Wordsworth’s sister Dorothy in her diary, that he visited Robert Burns’s grave in Dumfries in 1803. Such was the pathos relating to this visit that Wordsworth wrote a poem about it for the children of Robert Burns. This poem was highly significant in gaining Burns entry into the English tradition of Romantic poets via the respect that Wordsworth afforded him.  Dorothy’s visit to Burns grave is described below.

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usebooks/wordsworth-scotland/index.html

Here are the definitions of Romanticism as defined by the Wiki-Pedia.

‘Romanticism, a philosophical, literary, artistic and cultural era which began in the mid/late-18th century as a reaction against the prevailing ideals of the day (Romantics favored more natural, emotional and personal artistic themes), also influenced poetry. Inevitably, the characterization of a broad range of contemporaneous poets and poetry under the single unifying name can be viewed more as an exercise in historical compartmentalization than an attempt to capture the essence of the actual ‘movement’.
Poets such as William Wordsworth were actively engaged in trying to create a new kind of poetry that emphasized intuition over reason and the pastoral over the urban, often eschewing consciously poetic language in an effort to use more colloquial language. Wordsworth himself in the Preface to his and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads defined good poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings,” though in the same sentence he goes on to clarify this statement by asserting that nonetheless any poem of value must still be composed by a man “possessed of more than usual organic sensibility [who has] also thought long and deeply;” he also emphasizes the importance of the use of meter in poetry (which he views as one of the key features that differentiates poetry from prose).’

Here is Wordsworth poem inspired by the memory of Robert Burns

Address to the Sons of Burns, after visiting their Father's Grave (August 14th, 1803)" Poems in Two Volumes (1807) 2:203-04.

Ye now are panting up life's hill!

'Tis twilight time of good and ill,
And more than common strength and skill
Must ye display
If ye would give the better will
Its lawful sway.

Strong bodied if ye be to bear
Intemperance with less harm, beware!
But if your Father's wit ye share,
Then, then indeed,
Ye Sons of Burns! for watchful care
There will be need.

For honest men delight will take
To shew you favor for his sake,
Will flatter you; and Fool and Rake
Your steps pursue:
And of your Father's name will make
A snare for you.

Let no man hope your souls enslave;
Be independent, generous, brave!
Your Father such example gave,
And such revere!
But be admonish'd by his Grave,
And think, and fear

What proof do we need that Robert Burns was part of the English Romantic Movement than such a eulogy from its finest advocate, William Wordsworth?

The poems To a Mouse and To a Mountain Daisy are the epitome of it and worth study to see how Robert Burns became regarded as a forerunner of the Romantic Movement in his celebration of Nature.

For those wishing to hear the Romantic style, which speaks of the forms of Nature  in words and ballad, one can do no better than this rendering of Now Westlin Wind sung by Dick Goughan at this link here.

To a Mouse

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,

O, what a panic's in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

Wi' bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,

Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I'm truly sorry man's dominion,

Has broken nature's social union,

An' justifies that ill opinion,

Which makes thee startle

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,

An' fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;

What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!

A daimen icker in a thrave

'S a sma' request;

I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,

An' never miss't!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!

It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!

An' naething, now, to big a new ane,

O' foggage green!

An' bleak December's winds ensuin,

Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,

An' weary winter comin fast,

An' cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell -

Till crash! the cruel coulter past

Out thro' thy cell.

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,

Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!

Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,

But house or hald,

To thole the winter's sleety dribble,

An' cranreuch cauld!

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,

In proving foresight may be vain;

The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men

Gang aft agley,

An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,

For promis'd joy!

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me

The present only toucheth thee:

But, Och! I backward cast my e'e.

On prospects drear!

An' forward, tho' I canna see,

I guess an' fear

To A Mountain Daisy

Wee, modest crimson-tipped flow'r,

Thou's met me in an evil hour;

For I maun crush amang the stoure

Thy slender stem:

To spare thee now is past my pow'r,

Thou bonie gem.

Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet,

The bonie lark, companion meet,

Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,

Wi' spreckl'd breast!

When upward-springing, blythe, to greet

The purpling east.

Cauld blew the bitter-biting north

Upon thy early, humble birth;

Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth

Amid the storm,

Scarce rear'd above the parent-earth

Thy tender form.

The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield,

High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield;

But thou, beneath the random bield

O' clod or stane,

Adorns the histie stibble field,

Unseen, alane.

There, in thy scanty mantle clad,

Thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread,

Thou lifts thy unassuming head

In humble guise;

But now the share uptears thy bed,

And low thou lies!

Such is the fate of artless maid,

Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!

By love's simplicity betray'd,

And guileless trust;

Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid

Low i' the dust.

Such is the fate of simple bard,

On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd!

Unskilful Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,

And whelm him o'er!

Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n,

Who long with wants and woes has striv'n,

By human pride or cunning driv'n

To mis'ry's brink;

Till wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n,

He, ruin'd, sink!

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,

That fate is thine - no distant date;

Stern Ruin's plough-share drives elate,

Full on thy bloom,

Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight,

Shall be thy doom!

2/12/13 Extracts from Life Long Learning course – Robert Burns, The Man and the Myth by Film Maker Mairi Sutherland