Joe Miller's Jests, with Copious Additions — Reading Notes

The Dull Wit's Legacy

The preface explicitly states that Miller "was himself a jest for dulness," calling the attribution "sarkasum" (sarcasm). This self-aware irony recurs in the jests themselves: jest 709 features a colonel who claims to be his own captain, lieutenant, and cornet, only to be undercut by a duchess who adds "And trumpeter also, I presume." The pattern suggests that the collection's humor often targets pretension, including its own. Bellew's editorial note that the original 1739 title page was "most humbly inscribed" to figures like Alexander Pope and Orator Henley further underscores the jestbook's playful self-positioning within a specific social and literary milieu.

Repartee and Social Hierarchy

Many jests hinge on quick verbal exchanges that expose or invert social rank. In jest 707, a clergyman confused during horse-trade testimony deflects a bullying lawyer's insult by contrasting "a bully and a bull," noting that a bull has horns while the bully "luckily for me, has none." Jest 711 records Henry Erskine's gallant reply to the Duchess of Gordon: when she calls Edinburgh "vile dull," he retorts that the sun might as well refuse to rise. These exchanges rely on wit as a social equalizer, allowing the lower-status speaker to land the final word. The collection's structure—brief, punchy anecdotes—privileges the repartee over narrative buildup.

Recurring Motifs: Animals, Courts, and Misunderstandings

Several jests share thematic threads. Horses appear repeatedly: in jest 706, Sir Isaac Heard flatters King George III by calling his horse "Perfection" because "he bears the best of characters," a pun on the horse's name and the king's favor. Jest 707 again involves a horse, this time in a legal dispute. Irish dialect humor surfaces in jest 703, where a check-taker explains the Queen's incognito visit by saying she came "clane and dacent like another lady." The frequency of such motifs—animals, courtrooms, and linguistic misunderstandings—suggests the jestbook's reliance on familiar comic situations rather than original invention, reinforcing its role as a compendium of circulating jokes.

Readers approaching this edition should note that the jests are not arranged by theme or quality; they accumulate in a loose, almost random sequence. The pleasure lies less in individual punchlines than in observing the recurring social dynamics—the put-down, the misunderstanding, the self-deprecating twist. Bellew's preface invites us to treat the book as a historical artifact, a window into what counted as clever in 18th- and 19th-century company, rather than as a reliable source of timeless humor.

There’s something tender in how Bellew’s edition half-apologizes for Joe Miller, as if the joke’s on the man himself. It reminds me of leafing through The humour of Germany — Inside the Classic, where the laughter feels just as layered, just as wistful about who gets credited for a good punchline. Old jestbooks hold that ache quietly, don’t they?