JOE MILLER'S JESTS, or the WIT'S VADE-MECUM, a well-known collection of facetite, first published in 1739. A great proportion of the good things which this book contained appears to have been the product of the period immediately preceding its publication. They are more often humorous than witty, and they seem to have been all the more popular on account of a profusion of coarseness and indecency, such as the taste of the present age could not endure. A second edition of the Jests was called for in the year of the first publication; they came to a fourth edition in the following; year; and the work, growing in size at every fresh appearance, had reached its 14th edition by 1760. Innumerable issues of it, or of works founded upon it, bearing the same or similar titles, have since been published in England and America. It has, in many cases, been modified more or less, to suit the growing nicety of the public—with detriment, it must be said. to the quality of its humor; and, indeed, it would almost seem as if humor flourished upon obscenity as flowers do upon manure. A lithographic fac simile of the first edition, which is now exceedingly rare—there is no copy in the British museum—was published in 186l. The exact title was as follows: "Joe Miller's Jests, or the Wit's Vade-mecum; being a Collection qf the most Brilliant Jests, the Politest Bepa4.tees, the most Elegant Bons-mots, and most Pleasant Short Stories in the English Lan guage. First carefully collected in the company, and many of them transcribed from the Mouth of the Facetious Gentleman whose name they bear; • and thew 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. Alex ander Pope, Mr. Professor Lacy, Mr. Orator Henley, and Job Baker, the Kettle-drummer. London, T. Read, Dogwell Court, Whitefriars, Fleet Street, 1739." The Joe Miller whose name has been handed down in connection with this compilation of jests was Joseph Miller, an eminent comic actor, reputed among the tavern-hunters of his time as a fellow of infinite humor. He was born, it is believed, in London, in 1034; he died in London in 1738, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Clement Danes in the Strand, where there is a tombstone erected to his memory, bearing an epitaph by Stephen Duck. He was a great favorite with the public, and is said to have con tributed by his acting to the popularity of Congreve's plays. Ben in Lore for Lore,
sir Joseph Wittol in the Old Bachelor, and Teague in the Committee, were the characters in which he was most successful; his portrait was painted in the last two of these. The compiler of the J281.3 was John Mottley, an author of no great reputation, who is said to have amused himself by writing down or dictating them at a time when he was laid up with the gout. Mottley was the son of a col. Mottley, who, having been high in favor with James II., followed James into exile, got a command in the service of Louis XIV., and Was killed at the battle of Turin in 1708. Col. Mottley had married before the revolution a Gloucestershire lady of considerable fortune. His wife—her family being zealous for the revolution—refused to accompany him to St. Germain. Three of four years later lie made a stay of considerable length in England upon a secret commission from James; and his son, the compiler of the Jests, was born in London, in 1692. Mottley was educated at St. Martin's library school in London; and, through the influence of viscount Howe, who was a connection of his mother, he got, at the age of 16, a place in the excise office. This place he lost in 1720, apparently through some involvement in the bubble speculations of that year; and afterwards, though he had promises both from lord Halifax and from sir Robert Walpole, he .never succeeded in obtaining an office. He had to live by his wits, and be produced five or six plays—the first of them named the Imperial Cuptire—which met with some success. He seems to have owed not a little to the patronage he received from people of fashion and from the court. In 1739, the year in which he produced Joe Miller's J;sts,, he also published a life of the great czar Peter, in 3 vols. 8vo. This work was published by subscription, and had the support of the royal family, and of a great number of the nobility and gentry. He followed it up in 1744 with the History of the Life and Reign of the Empress Catharine qf Russia. 2 vols. 8vo. These works were mere compilations from the journals and other publications of the time; but with the lapse pf time they have acquired some value, through the scarcity or disappearance of the authorities upon which they were founded. Mottley died Oct. 3, 1750.