to 1748 Cave published an occasional magazine, entitled ‘Miscellaneous Correspondence,’ of which nine numbers only appeared. From 1744 to 1753 he issued a second work, ‘Miscellanea Curiosa Mathematica,’ 4to. Both these are very scarce, and a complete set of the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ of the first edition would be difficult to find in any library. In the British Museum copy the first two volumes alone are made up of six editions, some printed twenty-three years after the first issue, and with the most varied imprints.
Besides the magazine Cave published Johnson's ‘Rambler.’ His press also produced Du Halde's ‘History of China’ in weekly numbers, forming 2 vols. fol. 1736; Mackerell's ‘History and Antiquities of King's Lynn,’ 1738, 8vo; ‘Debates of the House of Commons, by the Hon. Anchitel Grey,’ 10 vols. 1745, 8vo; Dr. Newton's ‘Compleat Herbal,’ 1752, 8vo; an edition of the works of Sydenham, the physician; several of Dr. Johnson's books (‘London,’ ‘Irene,’ ‘Life of Savage,’ &c.), and other works. Cave bought an old coach and a pair of older horses, and in lieu of a coat of arms or simple crest he had a representation of St. John's Gate painted on the door panels; his plate bore the same picture.
In 1740 Cave purchased a machine to spin wool or cotton into thread yarn or worsted, and had a mill erected to work on the Turnmill Brook, near the river Fleet. Lewis Paul of Birmingham, the patentee, undertook the management, but it was never brought into proper working order, or it would have anticipated the labours of Arkwright and Peel. He set up a water-wheel and machinery at Northampton with fifty pairs of hands, and the use of Paul's carding cylinder, patented in 1748, but this was also neglected and failed. He was very friendly to Benjamin Franklin, and in 1750 placed one of his electric spires or lightning conductors on the eastern tower of St. John's Gate. On the same gate he mounted four portable cannons of his own invention. They were so light as to be carried on the shoulder, and yet could discharge either a large ball or a number of bullets. From one of the ‘Poetical Epistles’ it appears that his wife was named Milton, and her first husband Newton. She signs another humorous poem as ‘Su. Urban.’ She died of asthma in 1751. Cave travelled much in his later years, for health's sake, to Gloucester, Northampton, and Reading, and loved to announce himself to school friends as ‘old Cave the cobbler.’ He died at St. John's Gate 10 Jan. 1754, and was buried at St. James's, Clerkenwell; the long and interesting epitaph on a tablet in Rugby churchyard to him and his father (who died 1747) was by Hawkesworth.
Cave was over six feet in height and bulky. In early life he was very healthy, and fond of feats of strength and agility. Later in life he suffered much from gout, took the Bath waters in 1736, for twenty years before his death his only beverage was milk and water, and for four years he adopted a vegetarian diet. His sedentary habits were remarkable, writing during breakfast and supper, and taking at times only a little shuttlecock exercise in the gateway with a friend or two. He was reserved but generous, and not without humour. Cave's portrait, etched by Worlidge from Kyte's oil painting, 1740, is in ‘Gent. Mag.’ 1754, p. 55. A second portrait was produced when Worlidge's was worn out. There is a third by Grignon, surrounded with emblematical devices, and with a four-line inscription; a fourth by Basire is the frontispiece to vol. v. of Nichols's ‘Literary Anecdotes,’ 1812; and a fifth by E. Scriven is in Murray's edition of Boswell's ‘Johnson.’ Mr. B. Foster, a tenant of St. John's Gate when it had become a tavern, found in an old room a three-quarter length portrait, said to be Hogarth's. This was placed, along with Goldsmith's and Johnson's, in the rooms of the ‘Urban Club.’ The ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ was Cave's sole property till his death. It was continued by David Henry, a printer, who married Cave's sister Mary in 1734, and by Richard Cave, a nephew. Henry's connection with it lasted till 1792, when he died. John Nichols, having obtained a share in 1778, edited it from that time till his death in 1816. Up to 1781 it was published at St. John's Gate. In 1850 great alterations were made. In 1856 it passed from the Nichols family to the Parkers of Oxford, and in 1865 to Bradbury & Evans. It still exists in a changed form.
[Nichols's Lit. Anecd. vii. 66–7, 531; Boswell's Johnson (Croker's), 101–21; Timperley's Lit. and Typogr. Anecd. 624, 636, 643, 656, 688, 775, 806; Andrews's British Journalism, i. 140, ii. 206, 269, 271; West's Warwickshire, p. 107; Gratton, The Gallery, p. 19; Rugby School Register, p. 15; Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 27; Journal of House of Commons, xxi. 85, 118, 119, 127, xxiii. 148; Journal of House of Lords, xxvii. 94, 100, 107–9; Gent. Mag. 1735, p. 3, 1754, p. 57, 1792, pt. i. 578, 1856, pp. 3, 131, 267, 531, 667, 1857, pp. 3, 149, 282, 379; Quarterly Review, cvii. 52; Coxe's Memoirs of Walpole, i. 573; Sloane MS. 4302; Add. MS. 5972–3; Foster's Priory and Gate of St. John.]
CAVE, JOHN (d. 1657), ejected clergyman, was born at Pickwell in Leicestershire, and was the third son of ‘John Cave, Esq., and Elizabeth Brudenell, wife.’ He
