Westminster). Three or more years of reporting detailed discussion of such matters were a splendid apprenticeship for the general commentator on human affairs that Johnson was to become. During these early years, Johnson published a good deal elsewhere than in the columns of the Gentleman's, publications with which Cave was also connected. In May 1738 a nineteen-page booklet appeared, containing a poem of 263 lines in heroic couplets (and one triplet) entitled London. It caused a mild stir and reached a second edition within a week. Pope, whose long poem One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty Eight, likewise a denunciation of life at that time and in that place, was published the same day, gave high praise to his unknown rival's work. London is subtitled A Poem, in Imitation the Third Satire of Juvenal , which was a diatribe against life in contemporary Rome. It is important to understand that an "imitation" is not a translation or even paraphrase of an original work, but rather what might be called a set of variations on a theme. Juvenal satirizes aspects of life in Rome which displease him, Johnson does the same with life in London; for instance, Juvenal condemns the baneful influence of Greek immigrants, Johnson of French. Both cities suffer from things that still plague metropolises--street hoodlums, jerry-built structures, corrupt politicians: Their ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the ...
