Burns, tall, well formed and graceful, was always a charming presence. The beautiful and all-accomplished Duchess of Gordon said that Burns was the most fascinating guest she ever saw entertained. Speaking of the portrait by Alexander Nasmyth, Sir Walter Scott says: “This is the best likeness of Burns, but his features, as I remember them, were still more massive and imposing than they are represented in this picture. There was a strong expression of shrewdness in his lineaments, the eyes alone indicating the poetic character and temperament. They were large and dark and literally glowed when he spoke with feeling or interest. I never saw such eyes in any other head.” Attired always in the tip of the fashion, Byron was a drawing-room dude in the smart set of London. The dress of Burns was coarse and homely, made from his own sheep, carded by his own fire. His plaid was red and white, woven with great pride by his mother and sister. His home and the homes of his friends, were low-thatched cottages, consisting of kitchen and bedrooms, with floors of kneaded clay. If the former set a fashion for collars which lasts to this good day, the latter has left us the Tam-o’-Shanter hat. Burns was essentially musical, having begun his career by setting music to the verses of another. Byron, in a luxurious salon, wooed and won a woman of fashion. Burns gives this account of his courtship with Highland Mary, Who was snatched away in beauty’s bloom: “We plighted our troth on the Sabbath to make it more sacred, seated by a running brook, that Nature might be a witness, over an open Bible, to show we remembered God in the compact.” After a second edition of “Poems by an Ayrshire Plowman,” Burns spent the winter in Edinburgh, where he was the lion of the elegant coteries of the city. Lords, ladies, men of letters, all with manners highly polished by attrition, found in him a barbarian who was not barbarous. As the poet met in at least one lord feelings as natural as those of a plowman, so they met in a plowman manners worthy of a lord. Dugald Stewart writes: “His manner was easy and unperplexed; his address was perfectly well-bred and elegant in its simplicity; he felt neither eclipsed by the titled nor embarrassed before the learned and eloquent, but took his station with the ease of one born to it.” Each poet had a brief political career. As exciseman for several years it was necessary for Burns to ride over two hundred miles per week, thus coming constantly in contact with the people. In this public service he made a record for being thorough, correct and at the same time humane.