Francis Coventry
Francis Coventry was an English Anglican cleric and novelist, best known for The History of Pompey the Little.
Life
A native of Cambridgeshire, he was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. 1748 and M.A. 1752. He was appointed by his kinsman the George Coventry, [6th Earl of Coventry|Earl of Coventry] to the perpetual curacy of Edgware, and died of smallpox at Whitchurch.Works
Coventry was the author of:- Penshurst, a poem, inscribed to William Perry, esq., and the Hon. Mrs. Elizabeth Perry, 1750, reprinted in vol. iv. of Dodsley's Miscellanies;
- the fifteenth number of the World, 12 April 1753, containing Strictures on the Absurd Novelties introduced in Gardening;
- the satirical romance and roman à clef, Pompey the Little, or the Adventures of a Lapdog, 1751, which Lady [Mary Wortley Montagu] preferred to Peregrine Pickle. Several characters in were intended for ladies well known in contemporary society.