Fame and money--these are the two chief spurs which drive the author on. The statement may sound ignoble, and the writers of every generation persist in avowing that they write only to amuse themselves and to do good in their generation. The noble lady in _Lothair_ wished that she might never eat, or if at all, only a little fruit by moonlight on a bank. She, nevertheless, was always punctual at her dinner; and the author who protests his utter indifference to money and reputation is commonly excessively sensitive when an attack is made on his claims in either direction. Literary reputation is relative, of course. There may be a village fame which does not burn very brightly in the country town, and provincial stars that look very pale in a great city. The circumstances, however, under which all the various degrees of fame are reached, are, I think, closely analogous, and what is true of the local celebrity is true, relatively, of a Victor Hugo or of a Tennyson. The importance of the reputation is shown by the expanse of the area it covers, not by the curve of its advance. The circle of a great man's fame is extremely wide, but it only repeats on a vast scale the phenomena attending on the fame of a small man. The three principal ways in which a literary reputation is formed appear to be these: reviews, private conversation among the leaders of opinion, and the instinctive attraction which leads the general public to discover for itself what is calculated to give it pleasure. I will briefly indicate the manner in which these three seem to act at the present moment on the formation of notoriety and its attendant success, in the case of English authors. First of all, it is not unworthy of note that reputation, or fame, and monetary success, are not identical, although the latter is frequently the satellite of the former. One extraordinary example of their occasional remoteness, which may be mentioned without impertinence on the authority of the author himself, is the position of Mr. Herbert Spencer. In any list of living Englishmen eminently distinguished for the originality and importance of their books, Mr. Spencer cannot fail to be ranked high. Yet, as every student of his later work knows, he stated in the preface of one of those bald and inexpensive volumes in which he enshrines his thought, that up to a comparatively recent date the sale of his books did not cover the cost of their publication. This was the case of a man famous, it is not too much to say, in every civilised country in the globe.