John's Gate, Clerkenwell, which had been in olden times the entrance
gateway to the hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, but was then the
abiding place of Cave's printing press, and upon either side of the
engraving was a list of the titles of metropolitan and provincial
newspapers. The contents, as announced on the same title page, were: 1.
Essays, controversial, humorous and satirical, religious, moral, and
political, collected chiefly from the public papers; 2. Select pieces of
poetry; 3. A succinct account of the most remarkable transactions and
events, foreign and domestic; 4. Marriages and deaths, promotions and
bankruptcies; 5. The prices of goods and stocks, and bills of mortality;
6. A register of barks; 7. Observations on gardening. The prospectus
states:

'Our present undertaking, in the first place, is to give monthly a
view of all the pieces of wit, humor, or intelligence daily offered
to the public in the newspapers, which of late are so multiplied as
to render it impossible, unless a man makes it his business, to
consult them all; and in the next place, we shall join therewith
some other matters of use or amusement that will be communicated to
us. Upon calculating the number of newspapers, 'tis found that
(besides divers written accounts) no less than two hundred half
sheets _per mensem_ are thrown from the press only in London, and
about as many printed elsewhere in the three kingdoms, a
considerable part of which constantly exhibit essays on various
subjects for entertainment, and all the rest occasionally oblige
their readers with matter of public concern, communicated to the
world by persons of capacity, through their means, so that they are
become the chief channels of amusement and intelligence. But then,
being only loose papers, uncertainly scattered about, it often
happens that many things deserving attention contained in them are