It is a well-established view that Samuel Johnson's London presents the pastoral as a serene repose from the foul and pestilent metropolis.1 Such an interpretation is quite obvious. However, I believe that there may be further dimensions and greater subtleties to Johnson's construction of the rustic idyll than have previously been realized. In an essay published on the occasion of Dr. Johnson's 250th birthday, Mary Lascelles concludes that 'London has not the brilliance of its original, because it lacks the lightening flash of its irony'.2 Lascelles is arguably right to find irony in Juvenal's 'Satire III', and in sensing none in London, she aligns herself with the vast majority of those who have published their views on the poem. However, through a consideration of Johnson's possible Miltonic allusion, his politicization of the pastoral and his characterization of Thales, I wish to explore the idea that Johnson presents the rural/urban antithesis with a generally unrecognized, ironic complexity. .
The extent to which Juvenal's 'Satire III' portrays the country ironically is a contentious topic. Lascelles believes that where Umbritius urges Juvenal to come with him, 'ironic overtones can be heard',3 she continues that the town of Cumae, where Thales intends to settle, has been deliberately chosen by Juvenal, due to it being 'an insignificant, depopulated village'.4 Howard D. Weinbrot comments that 'such a view of Juvenal's poem has little to recommend it'.5 However, Umbritius' rustic vision which Susanna Morton Braund translates as, 'here you'll have a little garden and a well so shallow it doesn't need a rope [] it's something wherever you are [] to make yourself master of a single lizard',6 does not seem like an overwhelmingly attractive prospect, and could indeed be considered ironic. I believe that simpler, more obvious irony is evident in other parts of 'Satire III'.