any large subterraneous hollow. These were undoubtedly the primitive habitations, before men began to build edifices above ground. The primitive method of burial was also to repose the bodies in caves, which seems to have been the origin of catacombs. They long continued the proper habitations of shepherds. Among the Romans, caves (antra) used to be consecrated to nymphs, who were worshipped in caves, as other gods were in temples. The Persians also worshipped their god Mithras in a natural cave consecrated for the purpose by Zoroaster. The cave of the nymph Egeria is still shown at Rome. Kircher, after Gaffarellus, enumerates divers species of caves; as divine, natural, &c.—Of natural caves some are possessed of a medicinal virtue, as the Grotto de Serpente; others are poisonous or mephitical; some are replete with metallic exhalations, and others with waters. Divine caves were those said to affect the human mind and passions in various ways, and even to inspire with a knowledge of future events. Such were the sacred caverns at Delphi which inspired the Pythia; the Sibyl's cave at Cumae, still shown near the lake Avernus; the cave of Trophonius, &c.

Dr William, a learned English divine, born in 1637, educated in St John's College, Cambridge; and successively minister of Hafely in Oxfordshire, All-hallows the Great in London, and of Idlington. He became chaplain to Charles II, and in 1684 was installed a canon of Windsor. He compiled the Lives of the Primitive Fathers in the three first Centuries of the Church, which is esteemed a very useful work; and Historia Literaria, &c., in which he gives an exact account of all who had written for or against Christianity from the time of Christ to the 14th century; which works produced a very warm dispute between Dr Cave and M. Le Clerc, who was then writing his Bibliothèque Universelle in Holland, and who charged the doctor with partiality. Dr Cave died in 1713.

Edward, printer, celebrated as the projector of the Gentleman's Magazine,—the first publication of the species, and since

The fruitful mother of a thousand more, was born in 1691. His father being disappointed of some small family expectations, was reduced to follow the trade of shoemaker at Rugby in Warwickshire. The free school of this place, in which his son had, by the rules of its foundation, a right to be instructed, was then in high reputation, under the Rev. Mr Holyoak, to whose care most of the neighbouring families, even of the highest rank, intrusted their sons. He had judgement to discover, and for some time generosity to encourage, the genius of young Cave; and was so well pleased with his quick progress in the school, that he declared his resolution to breed him for the university, and recommend him as a servitor to some of his scholars of high rank. But prosperity which depends upon the caprice of others, is of short duration. Cave's superiority in literature exalted him to an invidious familiarity with boys who were far above him in rank and expectations; and, as in unequal affections it always happens, whatever unlucky prank was played was imputed to Cave. When any mischief, great or small, was done, though perhaps others boasted of the stratagem when it was successful, yet upon detection or miscarriage, the fault was sure to fall to poor Cave. The harsh treatment he experienced from this source, and which he bore for a while, made him at last leave the school, and the hope of a literary education, to seek some other means of gaining a livelihood.

He was first placed with a collector of the excise; but the influence of his mistress, who employed him in servile drudgery, quickly disgusted him, and he went up to London in quest of more suitable employment. He was recommended to a timber merchant at the Bankside; and while he was there on liking, is said to have given hopes of great mercantile abilities; but this place he soon left; and was bound apprentice to Mr Collins, a printer of some reputation, and deputy alderman. This was a trade for which men were formerly qualified by a literary education, and which was pleasing to Cave, because it furnished some employment for his scholastic attainments. Here, therefore, he resolved to settle, though his master and mistress lived in perpetual discord, and their house was therefore no comfortable habitation. From the inconveniences of these domestic tumults he was soon released, having in only two years attained so much skill in his art, and gained so much the confidence of his master, that he was sent without any superintendant to conduct a printing house at Norwich, and publish a weekly paper. In this undertaking he met with some opposition, which produced a public controversy, and procured young Cave the reputation of a writer.

His master died before his apprenticeship was expired, and he was not able to bear the perverseness of his mistress. He therefore quitted her house upon a stipulated allowance, and married a young widow, with whom he lived at Bow. When his apprenticeship was over, he worked as a journeyman at the printing-house of Mr Barbar, a man much distinguished and employed by the Tories, whose principles had at that time so much prevalence with Cave, that he was for some years a writer in Mill's Journal. He afterwards obtained by his wife's interest a small place in the post-office; but still continued, at his intervals of attendance, to exercise his trade, or to employ himself with some typographical business. He corrected the Gradus ad Parnassum; and was liberally rewarded by the Company. Company of Stationers. He wrote an Account of the Criminals, which had for some time a considerable sale; and published many little pamphlets that accident brought into his hands, of which it would be very difficult to recover the memory. By the correspondence which his place in the post-office facilitated, he procured a country newspaper, and told their intelligence to a journalist in London for a guinea a-week. He was afterwards raised to the office of the clerk of the franks, in which he acted with great spirit and firmness; and often stopped franks which were given by members of parliament to their friends, because he thought such extension of a peculiar right illegal. This raised many complaints; and the influence that was exerted against him procured his ejectment from office. He had now, however, collected a sum sufficient for the purchase of a small printing-office, and began the Gentleman's Magazine; an undertaking to which he owed the influence in which he passed the last 20 years of his life, and the large fortune which he left behind him. When he formed the project, he was far from expecting the success which he found; and others had so little prospect of its consequence, that though he had for several years talked of his plan among printers and bookellers, none of them thought it worth the trial. That they were not (says Dr Johnson) restrained by their virtue from the execution of another man's design, was sufficiently apparent as soon as that design began to be gainful; for, in a few years, a multitude of magazines arose, and perished; only the London Magazine, supported by a powerful association of bookellers, and circulated with all the art and all the cunning of trade, exempted itself from the general fate of Cave's invaders, and obtained though not an equal, yet a considerable sale.

Cave now began to aspire to popularity; and being a greater lover of poetry than any other art, he sometimes offered subjects for poems, and proposed prizes for the best performers. The first prize was £50, for which, being but newly acquainted with wealth, and thinking the influence of £50 extremely great, he expected the first authors of the kingdom to appear as competitors, and offered the allotment of the prize to the universities. But, when the time came, no name was seen among the writers that had been ever seen before; and the universities and several private men rejected the province of affixing the prize. The determination was then left to Dr Cromwell Mortimer and Dr Birch; and by the latter the award was made, which may be seen in Gent. Mag. vol. vi. p. 59.

Mr Cave continued to improve his Magazine, and had the satisfaction of seeing its success proportionate to his diligence, till in 1754, his wife died of an asthma. He seemed not at first much affected by her death, but in a few days lost his sleep and his appetite, which he never recovered. After having lingered about two years, with many vicissitudes of amendment and relapse, he fell by drinking acid liquors into a diarrhoea, and afterwards into a kind of lethargic insensibility; and died Jan. 10. 1754, having just concluded the 23rd annual collection.