WILLIAM CAVE

WILLIAM CAVE (1637–1713), English divine, was born at Pickwell in Leicestershire . He was educated at St John’s College,Cambridge, and successively held the livings of Islington (1662), of All-Hallows the Great, Thames Street, London (1679), and of Isleworth in Middlesex (1690). Dr Cave was chaplain to Charles II., and in 1684 became a canon of Windsor. The two works on which his reputation principally rests are the A postolici, or History of Apostles and Fathers in the first three centuries of the Church (1677), and Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Historia Literaria (1688). The best edition of the latter is the Clarendon Press, 1740-1743, which contains additions by the author and others. In both works he was drawn into controversy with Jean le Clerc, who was thenwriting his Bibliotheque universelle, and who accused him of partiality. He wrote several other works of the same nature which exhibit scholarly research and lucid arrangement. He is said to have been a good talker and an eloquent preacher. His death occurred at Windsor on the 4th of July 1713