History and Antiquities.—At the period of the English settlement, and for some centuries afterwards, this district was known as the Brenny, being divided between the families of O’Rourke and O’Reilly; and its inhabitants, protected by the nature of the country, long maintained their independence. In 1579 Cavan was made shire ground as part of Connaught, and in 1584 it was formed into a county of Ulster by Sir John Perrott, and subdivided into seven baronies, two of which were assigned to Sir John O’Reilly and three to other members of the family; while the two remaining, possessed by the septs of Mackernon and Magauran, and situated in the mountains bordering on O’Rourke’s country, were left subject to their ancient tenures and the exactions of their Irish lord. The county subsequently came within the scheme for the plantation of Ulster under James I. The population is less mixed in race than in most parts of Ulster, being generally of Celtic extraction. Some few remains of antiquity remain in the shape of cairns, raths and the ruins of small castles, such as Cloughoughter Castle on an island (an ancient crannog) of Lough Oughter. Three miles from the town of Cavan is Kilmore, with its cathedral, a plain erection containing a Romanesque doorway brought from the abbey of Trinity Island, Lough Oughter. The bishopric dates from about 1450. A portion of a round tower is seen in the churchyard of the parish of Drumlane at Belturbet.
CAVAN, a market-town and the county town of Co. Cavan, Ireland, near the centre of the county, in the west parliamentary division, 85½ m. N.W. of Dublin by the Midland Great Western railway, and the terminus of a branch of the Great Northern railway from Clones. Pop. of urban district (1901), 2822. It is on one of the tributary streams of the Annalee river, in a broad valley surrounded on every side by elevated ground, with picturesque environs, notably the demesnes of Farnham and of Kilmore, which belongs to the bishops of that diocese. Cavan has no buildings of antiquarian interest, but the principal county institutions are here, and the most conspicuous building is the grammar school, founded by Charles I. It was rebuilt in 1819 on an eminence overlooking one of the main entrances into the town, and is capable of accommodating 100 resident pupils. The college of St Patrick is near the town. Cavan has some linen trade, and a considerable retail business is transacted in the town. A monastery of Dominican friars, founded by O’Reilly, chieftain of the Brenny, formerly existed here, and became the burial-place of the celebrated Irish general, Owen O’Neill, who died as is supposed by poison, in 1649, at Cloughoughter. There was also the castle of the O’Reillys, but this and all other antiquities of the town were swept away during the violent and continuous feuds to which the country was subjected. In 1690 the chief portion of the town was burned by the Enniskilleners under General Wolseley, when they routed a body of James II.’s troops under the duke of Berwick.
CAVANILLES, ANTONIO JOSÉ (1745-1804), Spanish botanist, was born at Valencia on the 16th of January 1745. He was educated at the university of that town, and in 1777 went to Paris, where he resided twelve years, engaged in the study of botany. In 1801 he became director of the botanic gardens at Madrid, where he died on the 4th of May 1804. In 1785-1786 he published Monadelphiae Classis Dissertationes X., and in 1791 he began to issue Icones et descriptiones plantarum Hispaniae.
His nephew, Antonio Cavanilles (1805-1864), was a distinguished advocate, and the author of a history of Spain, published at Madrid in 1860-1864.
CAVATINA (Ital. diminutive of cavata, the producing of tone from an instrument, plural cavatine), originally a short song of simple character, without a second strain or any repetition of the air. It is now frequently applied to a simple melodious air, as distinguished from a brilliant aria, recitative, &c., and often forms part of a large movement or scena in oratorio or opera.
CAVE, EDWARD (1691-1754), English printer, was born at Newton, Warwickshire, on the 27th of February 1691. His father, Joseph Cave, was of good family, but the entail of the family estate being cut off, he was reduced to becoming a cobbler at Rugby. Edward Cave entered the grammar school of that town, but was expelled for robbing the master’s hen-roost. After many vicissitudes he became apprentice to a London printer, and after two years was sent to Norwich to conduct a printing house and publish a weekly paper. While still a printer he obtained a place in the post office, and was promoted to be clerk of the franks. He was at this time engaged in supplying London newsletters to various country papers; and his enemies, who had twice summoned him before the House of Commons for breach of privilege, now accused him of opening letters to obtain his news, and he was dismissed the service. With the capital which he had saved, he set up a small printing office at St John’s Gate, Clerkenwell, which he carried on under the name of R. Newton. He had long formed a scheme of a magazine “to contain the essays and intelligence which appeared in the two hundred half-sheets which the London press then threw off monthly,” and had tried in vain to persuade some publisher to take it up. In 1731 he himself put it into execution, and began the Gentleman’s Magazine (see [Periodicals]), of which he was the editor, under the pseudonym “Sylvanus Urban, Gent.” The magazine had a large circulation and brought a fortune to the projector. In 1732 he began to issue reports of the debates in both Houses of Parliament. He commissioned friends to note the speeches, which he published with the initial and final letters of personal names. In 1738 Cave was censured by parliament for printing the king’s answer to an address before it had been announced by the speaker. From that time he called his reports the debates of a “parliament in the empire of Lilliput” (see [Reporting]). To piece together and write out the speeches for this publication was Samuel Johnson’s first literary employment. In 1747 Cave was reprimanded for publishing an account of the trial of Lord Lovat, and the reports were discontinued till 1752. He died on the 10th of January 1754. Cave published Dr Johnson’s Rambler, and his Irene, London and Life of Savage, and was the subject of a short biography by him.