⁂ Mottley compiled a jest-book in the reign of James II., entitled _Joe Miller’s Jests_. The phrase, “That’s a Joe Miller,” means “that’s a jest from Mottley’s book.” _Miller_ (_Maximilian Christopher_), the Saxon giant; height eight feet. His hand measured a foot; his second finger was nine inches long; his head unusually large. He wore a rich Hungarian jacket and a huge plumed cap. This giant was exhibited in London in the year 1733. He died aged 60; was born at Leipsic (1674-1734). =Miller= (_Draxy_), bonny daughter of a thriftless, honest man, whose energy in the effort to recover some hundreds of acres of woodland deeded to her in jest, and supposed to be unprofitable, leads to comfort for her father, and a happy marriage for herself.--_Saxe Holm Stories_ (1886). =Miller of Mansfield= (_The_), John Cockle, a miller and keeper of Sherwood Forest. Hearing the report of a gun, John Cockle went into the forest at night to find poachers, and came upon the king (Henry VIII.), who had been hunting, and had got separated from his courtiers. The miller collared him; but, being told he was a wayfarer, who had lost himself in the forest, he took him home with him for the night. Next day, the courtiers were brought to the same house, having been seized as poachers by the under-keepers. It was then discovered that the miller’s guest was the king, who knighted the miller, and settled on him 1000 marks a year.--R. Dodsley, _The King and the Miller of Mansfield_ (1737). =Miller of Trompington= (_The_), Simon Simkin, an arrant thief. Two scholars undertook to see that a sack of corn was ground for “Solar Hill College,” without being tampered with; so one stood at the hopper, and the other at the trough below. In the mean time, Simon Simkin let loose the scholars’ horse; and while they went to catch it, he purloined half a bushel of the flour, which was made into cakes, and substituted meal in its stead. But the young men had their revenge; they not only made off with the flour, meal, and cakes without payment, but left the miller well trounced also.--Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_ (“The Reeve’s Tale,” 1388). A trick something like that played off on the Miller of Trompington.--_Review of Kirkton_, xix. 253. =Miller on the Dee.= “There was a Jolly Miller once lived on the River Dee,” is a song by Isaac Bickerstaff, introduced in _Love in a Village_, i. 1 (1763). =Mills= (_Miss_), the bosom friend of Dora. Supposed to have been blighted in early life in some love affair, and hence she looks on the happiness of others with a calm, supercilious benignity, and talks of herself as being “in the desert of Sahara.”--C. Dickens, _David Copperfield_ (1849).