The practice of duelling, also, which had hitherto passed unreproved, was censured by Steele in a series of papers in the _Tatler_, which seemed to have been written on an occasion when, having been forced to fight much against his will, he had the misfortune dangerously to wound his antagonist.[41] The sketches of character studied from life, and the letters from fictitious correspondents, both of which form so noticeable a feature in the _Spectator_, appear roughly, but yet distinctly, drafted in the _Tatler_. Even the papers of literary criticism, afterwards so fully elaborated by Addison, are anticipated by his friend, who may fairly claim the honour to have been the first to speak with adequate respect of the genius of Milton.[42] In a word, whatever was perfected by Addison was begun by Steele; if the one has for ever associated his name with the _Spectator_, the other may justly appropriate the credit of the _Tatler_, a work which bears to its successor the same kind of relation that the frescoes of Masaccio bear, in point of dramatic feeling and style, to those of Raphael; the later productions deserving honour for finish of execution, the earlier for priority of invention. The _Tatler_ was published till the 2d of January, 1710-11, and was discontinued, according to Steele's own account, because the public had penetrated his disguise, and he was therefore no longer able to preach with effect in the person of Bickerstaff. It may be doubted whether this was his real motive for abandoning the paper. He had been long known as its conductor; and that his readers had shown no disinclination to listen to him is proved, not only by the large circulation of each number of the _Tatler_, but by the extensive sale of the successive volumes of the collected papers at the high price of a guinea apiece. He was, in all probability, led to drop the publication by finding that the political element that the paper contained was a source of embarrassment to him. His sympathies were vehemently Whig; the _Tatler_ from the beginning had celebrated the virtues of Marlborough and his friends, both directly and under cover of fiction; and he had been rewarded for his services with a commissionership of the Stamp-office. When the Whig Ministry fell in 1710, Harley, setting a just value on the abilities of Steele, left him in the enjoyment of his office and expressed his desire to serve him in any other way. Under these circumstances, Steele no doubt felt it incumbent on him to discontinue a paper which, both from its design and its traditions, would have tempted him into the expression of his political partialities.