James Miller's ‘Man of Taste’ (13 June), Wittol (16 June), and Teague (19 June). His final appearance was as Abel Drugger (27 June 1738) in the ‘Alchemist.’ Genest enumerates fifty-nine different characters in a selected list of his parts.
Miller secured a good position at Drury Lane, and was a member of the committee of actors which proposed to rent the theatre of Fleetwood, the lessee, in 1735 (Cibber, Apology, ed. Lowe, ii. 262). Victor describes him as ‘a natural spirited comedian,’ and adds that he long enjoyed a good salary, ‘a full proof of the force of his abilities.’ Davies calls him a ‘lively comic actor.’ He was unable to read, and ‘his principal object in marrying was to have a wife who was able to read his parts to him.’ He is vaguely reported to have been of convivial disposition, and to have spent much time at the Bull's Head in Spring Gardens, Charing Cross, or at the Black Jack in Portsmouth Street, Clare-market. He resided in Clare-market, and, according to very doubtful evidence, at one time himself kept a tavern in the neighbourhood. His boon companions are reported to have included James Spiller, the actor, and Hogarth. Miller died on 16 Aug. 1738, aged 54. The ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ 1738, p. 436, describes him as ‘Mr. Joseph Miller, a celebrated comedian.’ Genest asserts, on the other hand, that his christian name was Josias. He was buried in St. Clement's burial-ground, Portugal Street, Clare-market. The inscription on his grave, written by Stephen Duck, described him as ‘a tender husband, a sincere friend, a facetious companion, and an excellent comedian,’ and emphasised his ‘honesty and wit and humour.’ The monument, which only gives his christian name as ‘Joe,’ was restored in 1816 by ‘Jarvis Buck, churchwarden,’ and was finally destroyed in 1852, when an extension of King's College Hospital was erected on the site of the burial-ground (cf. Notes and Queries, 1st ser. v. 485).
His widow, Henrietta Maria, was accorded a benefit at Drury Lane on 14 Dec. 1738, when ‘Hamlet’ was performed with satisfactory results (cf. Genest, iii. 573).
Miller's chief reputation was made for him, after his death, by John Mottley [q. v.], who was commissioned by a publisher, T. Read, in 1739 to compile a collection of jests, and unwarrantably entitled his work ‘Joe Miller's Jests.’ Whincop writes in his account of Mottley that ‘the book that bears the title of “Joe Miller's Jests” was a collection made by him [i.e. Mottley] from other books, and great part of it supplied by his memory from among stories recollected in his former conversations.’ Miller is mentioned as the hero of three of the recorded anecdotes, but the name is introduced without historic justification. The jests are of a homely tone, often lack point, and rarely excite merriment in the modern reader. Most of them are borrowed from earlier collections, none of which were very exhilarating. The full title of the rare first edition ran: ‘Joe Miller's Jests; or the Wits Vade-Mecum. Being a Collection of the most Brilliant Jests; the Politest Repartees; the most Elegant Bon-Mots, and most pleasant short Stories in the English Language. First carefully collected in the company, and many of them transcribed from the mouth of the Facetious Gentleman whose name they bear; and now set forth and published by his lamentable friend and former companion, Elijah Jenkins, Esq. Most Humbly Inscribed to those Choice Spirits of the Age, Captain Bodens, Mr. Alexander Pope, Mr. Professor Lacy, Mr. Orator Henley, and Job Baker, the Kettle-Drummer. London: Printed and sold by T. Read in Dogwell Court, White Fryars, Fleet Street. mdccxxxix. (Price One Shilling.)’ The work in this form contained 247 witticisms. A lithographed facsimile was prepared in 1861 by M. J. Bellars. The number of jests had risen in the third edition, issued in the same year as the first, to 273. A fourth edition appeared in 1740, a fifth in 1742, a sixth in 1743, and a seventh in 1744. The eighth of 1745 supplied large additions, bringing the total of ‘The Jests’ to 587, and appending for the first time ‘a choice collection of moral sentences and of the most pointed and truly valuable epigrams in the British tongue, with the names of the authors to such as are known.’ A ninth edition of the work in this enlarged form appeared in 1747, and a tenth in 1751. Others are dated 1762 and 1771, and reissues, perfect and imperfect, often in chapbook form, have repeatedly come from the press both in this country and America until the present time, while Joe Miller's name has long been a synonym for a jest or witty anecdote of ancient flavour. An edition published at New York in 1865 supplies as many as 1,286 jests.
Several engraved portraits are known. One after C. Stoppelaer, dated 1738, as Teague, by Andrew Miller [q. v.]; another by Charles Mosley as Sir Joseph Wittoll (in ‘The Jests,’ 8th edit. 1745).
