Note 1243 — AN ESSAY ON MAN, IN FOUR EPISTLES (continued 3)
Reading edition
The MS. adds this couplet:
What partly pleases, totally will shock; Nor Ross would be Argyle, nor Toland I question much if Toland would be Locke.
The Duke of Argyle and General Ross were both soldiers, both politicians, and both Scotchmen. Ross was a member of the House of Commons. Toland introduced metaphysics into his infidel works, and Pope signifies by his couplet that the inferior in a particular department would not desire on the whole to change characters with a superior in the same department.