James Miller, 1706-1744, is better known as a comic dramatist than as a poet. He was the son of a clergyman from Upcerne in Dorset, and was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, where he wrote a comedy, _The Humours of Oxford_, which was successfully performed at Drury Lane in January 1730. On leaving Oxford he had been expected by his relations to go into business, but "not being able to endure the servile drudgery it demanded," he took holy orders and continued to write plays "to increase his finances."[22] From 1730 until his death in 1744 he wrote ten plays, several of which were performed with considerable success.[23]
But it is as a poet that we are primarily interested in Miller. He was the author of several occasional poems of which his _Harlequin Horace, or the Art of Modern Poetry_, 1731, was the best known. This poem, yet another imitation of Horace's _Ars Poetica_ is an attack on John Rich, the manager of Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent-Garden. The poem is ironically full of perverse modern advice on how to write poetry. Miller adopts the persona of a modern Grub Street poet who scorns the classical values. Consequently Pope, who insists on standards of excellence, is seen by the persona as the great enemy of modern poets. At the same time it is quite clear that for Miller himself Pope is the greatest of poets. The poem includes an attack on Walpole (ll. 209-216), and perhaps it was this that led the agents of the Ministry to make him the large offer referred to in the biography of Miller found in Cibber's _Lives_. But, as the anonymous writer of this life goes on to point out, Miller "had virtue sufficient to withstand the temptation, though his circumstances at that time were far from being easy."[24]
A second verse satire in the manner of Horace, _Seasonable Reproof_, 1735, has also been attributed to Miller. The poem is a general satire on Britain's "State of Reprobation," and only makes a passing glance at Walpole. London has been so forsaken by people all rushing to the Italian opera that
By _Excisemen_, it might now be taken, And great Sir _Bob_ ride through, and save his Bacon (ll. 6-7).
But more significant in our context is that, as Maynard Mack has shown, the author creates a speaker "who by his careful echoings of the _Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot_ seems to labor to be mistaken for Pope."[25]