The name of the _Tatler_, Isaac informs us, was "invented in honour of the fair sex," for whose entertainment the new paper was largely designed. It appeared three times a week, and its price was a penny, though it seems that the first number, published April 12, 1709, was distributed _gratis_ as an advertisement. In order to make the contents of the paper varied it was divided into five portions, of which the editor gives the following account: "All accounts of Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment, shall be under the article of White's Chocolate-House; Poetry under that of Will's Coffee-House; Learning under the title of Grecian; Foreign and Domestic News you will have from Saint James' Coffee-House; and what else I have to offer on any other subject shall be dated from my own apartment."[31] In this division we see the importance of the coffee-houses as the natural centres of intelligence and opinion. Of the four houses mentioned, St. James' and White's, both of them in St. James' Street, were the chief haunts of statesmen and men of fashion, and the latter had acquired an infamous notoriety for the ruinous gambling of its _habitués_. Will's, in Russell Street, Covent Garden, kept up the reputation which it had procured in Dryden's time as the favourite meeting-place of men of letters; while the Grecian, in Devereux Court in the Strand, which was the oldest coffee-house in London, afforded a convenient _rendezvous_ for the learned Templars. At starting, the design announced in the first number was adhered to with tolerable fidelity. The paper dated from St. James' Coffee-House was always devoted to the recital of foreign news; that from Will's either criticised the current dramas, or contained a copy of verses from some author of repute, or a piece of general literary criticism; the latest gossip at White's was reproduced in a fictitious form and with added colour. Advertisements were also inserted; and half a sheet of the paper was left blank, in order that at the last moment the most recent intelligence might be added in manuscript, after the manner of the contemporary news-letters. In all these respects the character of the newspaper was preserved; but in the method of treating news adopted by the editor there was a constant tendency to subordinate matter of fact to the elements of humour, fiction, and sentiment. In his survey of the manners of the time, Isaac, as an astrologer, was assisted by a familiar spirit, named Pacolet, who revealed to him the motives and secrets of men; his sister, Mrs. Jenny Distaff, was occasionally deputed to produce the paper from the wizard's "own apartment;" and Kidney, the waiter at St. James' Coffee-House, was humorously represented as the chief authority in all matters of foreign intelligence.