and was in 1714 expelled from the House of Commons to which he had just been elected.  The next year gave a favourable turn to his fortunes.  The accession of George I. brought back the Whigs, and S. was appointed to various offices, including a commissionership on forfeited estates in Scotland, which took him to Edinburgh, where he was welcomed by all the literati there.  Nothing, however, could keep him out of financial embarrassments, and other troubles followed:  his wife d.; differences, arose with Addison, who d. before a reconciliation could be effected.  The remaining years were clouded by financial troubles and ill-health.  His last work was a play, The Conscious Lovers (1722).  He left London and lived at Hereford and at Carmarthen, where he d. after a partial loss of his faculties from paralysis.

Lives by Austin Dobson (1886) and G.A.  Aitken (1889).  Ed., Plays by Aitken (1893), Essays (selected) Clarendon Press (1885), Tatler, Aitken (1898), Spectator, H. Morley (1868), Gregory Smith (1897-8), Aitken (1898).

STEEVENS, GEORGE (1736-1800).—­Shakespearian commentator, ed. at Eton and Camb.  He issued various reprints of quarto ed. of Shakespeare, and assisted Dr. Johnson in his ed., and also in his Lives of the Poets.  In 1793 he himself brought out a new ed. of Shakespeare, in which he dealt somewhat freely with the text.  He was in constant controversy with Ritson and other literary antiquaries, and was also an acute detector of literary forgeries, including those of Chatterton and Ireland.

STEEVENS, GEORGE WARRINGTON (1869-1900).—­Journalist and miscellaneous writer, b. at Sydenham, and ed. at City of London School and Oxf., took to journalism, in which he distinguished himself by his clearness of vision and vivid style.  Connected successively with the National Observer, the Pall Mall Gazette, and the Daily Mail, he utilised the articles which appeared in these and other publications in various books, such as The Land of the Dollar (America) (1897), With Kitchener to Kartoum, and The Tragedy of Dreyfus.  His most striking work, however, was Monologues of the Dead (1895).  He went as war correspondent to South Africa in 1900, and d. of enteric fever at Ladysmith.

STEPHEN, SIR JAMES (1789-1859).—­Statesman and historical writer, s. of James S., Master in Chancery, ed. at Camb., and called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn 1811.  After practising with success, accepted appointment of permanent counsel to Colonial Office and Board of Trade 1825, and was subsequently, 1826-47, permanent Under-Sec. for the Colonies, in which capacity he exercised an immense influence on the colonial policy of the empire, and did much to bring about the abolition of the slave trade.  Impaired health led to his resignation, when he was made K.C.B. and a Privy Councillor.  He was afterwards Prof. of Modern History at Camb. 1849-59, and of the same subject at the East India Coll. at Haileybury 1855-57.  He wrote Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography (1849) and Lectures on the History of France (1852).