In their daily issue, as well as afterwards in volumes, the essays had an extensive sale. They were to be found on every breakfast-table, and so popular did they prove, that when the imposition of a halfpenny tax destroyed a number of periodicals, Steele found it safe to double the price of the _Spectator_. The vivacity and humour of the paper were visible from the beginning. 'Mr. Steele,' Swift wrote, 'seems to have gathered new life, and to have a new fund of wit.' Of 555 papers, Addison wrote 274 and Steele 236, while the remaining forty-five were the work of occasional contributors. In the full tide of its success, and without any assigned reason, the _Spectator_ was brought to a conclusion in December, 1712, and in the following spring Steele started the _Guardian_, which might have been as fortunate as its predecessor, had not the editor's zeal tempted him to diverge to politics. He had also a disagreement with his publisher, and the _Guardian_ was allowed but a short life of 175 numbers. Of these about fifty were due to Addison, and upwards of eighty to Steele. Steele's political ardour was irrepressible, and a paper in the _Guardian_ (No. 128), demanding the abolition of Dunkirk, called forth a pamphlet from Swift, in which the weaknesses of his former friend are sneered at and denounced with enough of truthfulness to enhance their malice. After allowing that Steele has humour, and is no disagreeable companion 'after the first bottle,' Swift adds, 'Being the most imprudent man alive, he never follows the advice of his friends, but is wholly at the mercy of fools and knaves, or hurried away by his own caprice, by which he has committed more absurdities in economy, friendship, love, duty, good manners, politics, religion, and writing than ever fell to one man's share.' A little later, in anticipation of the Queen's death, Steele published _The Crisis_ (1714), a political pamphlet, which led to his expulsion from the House of Commons. It was answered by one of the most masterly of Swift's pamphlets, _The Public Spirit of the Whigs_, in which it is suggested that Steele might be superior to other writers on the Whig side 'provided he would a little regard the propriety and disposition of his words, consult the grammatical part, and get some information in the subject he intends to handle.'