Henry Coventry (c. 1710–1752) was an English religious writer.

Life

He was the son of Henry Coventry, younger brother of William Coventry, 5th Earl of Coventry and a landowner of Cowley, Middlesex, and his wife Ann Coles, and was born at Twickenham around 1710; the writer Francis Coventry was a cousin. He was educated at Eton College. He matriculated at Magdalene College, Cambridge in 1726, where he graduated B.A. in 1730 and became a Fellow, and M.A. in 1733.[1][2]

Coventry was an associate of Conyers Middleton, Horace Walpole and William Cole.[3] Cole wrote that, as an undergraduate, Coventry was a friend of Thomas Ashton, and they prayed with prisoners; but that later he was an "infidel".[4] He was a correspondent of John Byrom, who had taught him shorthand at Cambridge in 1730;[5][6] and was on good terms with William Melmoth the younger, a contemporary at Magdalene, who called him "my very ingenious friend, Philemon to Hydaspes", and dedicated to him his first work, Of an Active and Retired Life (1735).[7][8] He died on 29 December 1752.[3]

Works

With Charles Bulkley and Richard Fiddes, Coventry was a prominent defender of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury.[9] He wrote Philemon to Hydaspes, relating a conversation with Hortensius upon the subject of False Religion, in five parts, 1736–37–38–41–44. After his death, it was republished in 1753 by Francis Coventry, in one volume.[3]

This work has been taken as deist;[10] and it is replete with positive references to Shaftesbury.[11] John Mackinnon Robertson listed it as a "freethinking treatise".[12] Coventry is taken to have innovated in using the term "mysticism" against fanaticism of a sectarian nature.[13] In questioning the language and "luscious images" used in devotional literature, he cited The Fire of the Altar of Anthony Horneck, and wrote of the "wild extravagances of frantic enthusiasm".[14]

Coventry incurred the displeasure of William Warburton: who accused him of plagiarism in this work. That was in relation to Warburton's Hieroglyphics;[5] also of making unfair use of information communicated in confidence, which was to be published in the second volume of The Divine Legation of Moses.[3] John Brown, a Warburton ally, implied that Henry Coventry was a slavish disciple of Shaftesbury, and Francis Coventry rebutted the allegation.[11][15]

Coventry was one of the authors of the Athenian Letters. A pamphlet entitled Future Rewards and Punishments believed by the Antients, 1740, has been attributed to him.[3]

Notes

  1. ^ Levin, Adam Jacob. "Coventry, Henry". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/6478. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  2. ^ "Coventry, Henry (CVNY726H)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  3. ^ a b c d e Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Coventry, Henry (d.1752)" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 12. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  4. ^ Original Letters Illustrative of English History ; Including Numerous Royal Letters : from Autographs in the British Museum, and One Or Two Other Collections with Notes and Illustrations by Henry Ellis. Second Series. 1827. p. 485 note.
  5. ^ a b Remains, Historical and Literary, Connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester. Chetham Society. 1855. p. 564 and note 2.
  6. ^ Timothy Underhill, John Byrom and Shorthand in Early Eighteenth-Century Cambridge, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society Vol. 15, No. 2 (2013), pp. 229–277, at p. 253. Published by: Cambridge Bibliographical Society JSTOR 24391728
  7. ^ A History, Critical And Biographical, Of British Authors, From The Earliest To The Present Times: 2. William and Robert Chambers. 1844. p. 245.
  8. ^ Wilson, Penelope. "Melmoth, William, the younger". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/18536. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  9. ^ Klein, Lawrence E. "Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/6209. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  10. ^ McCabe, Joseph (1920). A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists. London, Watts. p. 95.
  11. ^ a b Alfred Owen Aldridge, Shaftesbury and the Deist Manifesto, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society Vol. 41, No. 2 (1951), pp. 297–382, at p. 376. Published by: American Philosophical Society. JSTOR 1005651
  12. ^ Robertson, John Mackinnon (1899). A short history of freethought, ancient and modern. London; New York: S. Sonnenschein & Co. Ltd; The Macmillan Co. p. 320 note.
  13. ^ Leigh Eric Schmidt, The Making of Modern "Mysticism", Journal of the American Academy of Religion Vol. 71, No. 2 (Jun., 2003), pp. 273–302, at p. 277. Published by: Oxford University Press JSTOR 1466552
  14. ^ Coventry, Henry (1736). Philemon to Hydaspes: Relating a Conversation with Hortensius, Upon the Subject of False Religion. J. Roberts. pp. 543 and note, 544.
  15. ^ Nichols, John (1812). Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century. p. 569 note.
Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Coventry, Henry (d.1752)". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 12. London: Smith, Elder & Co.

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