Oldham had also imitated it, and
applied it to London; all which performances concur to prove, that great
cities, in every age, and in every country, will furnish similar topicks
of satire. Whether Johnson had previously read Oldham's imitation, I do
not know; but it is not a little remarkable, that there is scarcely any
coincidence found between the two performances, though upon the very
same subject.
Johnson's London was published in May, 1738; and it is remarkable, that
it came out on the same morning with Pope's satire, entitled '1738;' so
that England had at once its Juvenal and Horace as poetical monitors.
The Reverend Dr. Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury, to whom I am indebted
for some obliging communications, was then a student at Oxford,
and remembers well the effect which London produced. Every body was
delighted with it; and there being no name to it, the first buz of the
literary circles was 'here is an unknown poet, greater even than Pope.'
And it is recorded in the Gentleman's Magazine of that year, that it
'got to the second edition in the course of a week.
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