Sir Richard Steele

Sir Richard Steele (1672–1729) was born in Dublin and educated at the Charterhouse and Oxford. Essayist, dramatist and Whig politician, he founded The Tatler in 1709 and, with Joseph Addison, The Spectator in 1711.

His plays include The Conscious Lovers (1722). He wrote little verse; the song here was printed in The Muses Mercury in 1707.