Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Coventry, Francis

by no contributor recorded

COVENTRY, FRANCIS (d. 1759?), miscellaneous writer, a native of Cambridgeshire, was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. 1748 and M.A. 1752. He is the author of ‘Penshurst, a poem, inscribed to William Perry, esq., and the Hon. Mrs. Elizabeth Perry,’ 1750, 4to, reprinted in vol. iv. of ‘Dodsley's Miscellanies;’ and of the fifteenth number of the ‘World,’ 12 April, 1753, containing ‘Strictures on the Absurd Novelties introduced in Gardening.’ He also wrote a satirical romance, ‘Pompey the Little, or the Adventures of a Lapdog,’ 1751 (5th ed. 1773), which Lady Mary Wortley Montagu preferred to ‘Peregrine Pickle.’ Several characters were intended for ladies well known in contemporary society. He was appointed by his relative, the Earl of Coventry, to the perpetual curacy of Edgware, and died of small-pox at Whitchurch about 1759.

[Nichols's Lit. Anecd. v. 569; Cole's Athenæ.]