Samuel Johnson satirist :

Satire uses exaggeration, irony, humor, and sharp ridicule to critique a society, members of a society, and/or social institutions and point out vice, stupidity, and corruption. Samuel Johnson's "London" is a fine example of satire. Let's look at some examples of satire within the poem.
Johnson uses his poem to paint a stark and somewhat exaggerated picture of London. The main speaker is a man who cannot wait to get out of the city. It is filled with violence and corruption, and people are not even safe in their own beds behind locked doors.
Notice the list of horrors presented in the second stanza. The speaker is going to escape all of them, but he cannot help noting that in the city, "the fell Attorney prowls for Prey" and the "female Atheist talks you dead." Here is satire indeed, directed at lawyers and activists.
Greed is rampant in the city, as are theft and perjury. No one can speak the truth without consequence, and the speaker wants to pluck the wings of all the so-called poets and fall asleep over one of London's newspapers. The speaker is denounced for speaking what is right and correcting the wrong. He is "Spurn'd as a Beggar, dreaded as a Spy" for simply being honest. That is how corrupt London has become.
Great men have fallen very low, the speaker continues. "Behold the Warriour dwindled to a Beau," he declares. All virtues have been "refin'd away," and England, represented by London, is not what it once was. It is now "Of France the Mimic, and of Spain the Prey." Even the heights of the theater have taken a turn for the worse. It is vulgar now, and it glorifies lies and vices and criticizes virtue. This is dreadfully ironic, for theater is supposed to do the opposite.
London is simply horrible, according to the speaker, and that is why he is leaving it. But he will not leave it without this satire, which through its exaggeration, ridicule, irony, and even a bit of humor, provides a masterful portrait of the city.