STEELE, SIR Richard, British author: b. Dublin, March 1672; d. Carmarthen, Wales, 1 Sept. 1729. He left Oxford without taking a degree, for some time rode as a private trooper in the dragoon guards, obtained an en signcy in the foot guards, and wrote as his first comedy, the or 'Grief a-la-mode,' which was acted in 1701, with considerable suc cess. Through the recommendation of Addi son, whom he had known at Charter-house, he was appointed, in the beginning of the reign of Anne, to the post of writer of the London Gazette. His comedy of the 'Tender Husband' (in which Addison had some hand) appeared in 1703, and his 'Lying Lover> in 1704. In 1709 he began the periodical paper so celebrated under the title of the Toiler (q.v.). The ma jority of the papers in this periodical are by Steele, but a considerable number are wholly or partly by Addison, and one or two by other writers. Early in 1711 the Taller was succeeded by the still more celebrated Spectator (q.v.). The Spectator terminating. Steele commenced, in March 1713, the Guardian, which was fol lowed in October of the same year by a politi cal periodical called the Englishman. By this time he had taken to active political life, hav ing been returned to Parliament as member for Stockbridge in August 1713. In March 1714,
he was expelled from the House for an alleged libel in the last number of the Englishman, and in another paper called the Crisis. On the ac cession of George I he received the appoint ments of surveyor of the royal stables, and governor of the king's comedians, and was knighted (1715). He again entered the House of Commons as member for Borough bridge. Always engaged in some scheme or other, few or none of which succeeded, he, wasted his regular income in the anticipation of a greater, until absolute distress was the con sequence. In 1720 his patent as governor of the royal comedians was revoked. He appealed to the public, in a paper called the Theatre, which he had begun to publish at the beginning of 1720, a week or two before the event re ferred to. He was restored, the following year, to his authority over Drury Lane Theatre, and soon after wrote his comedy of the 'Conscious Lovers,' on a hint from Terence. This piece he dedicated to the king, who rewarded the author with BOO. Consult the 'Life' by Aitken (1889) and by Dobson (1886), who also edited 'Se lected Works' (1885).