NEITHER Burton nor Rossetti nor I had anything to do with the discovery of Omar Fitzgerald. . . . Two friends of Rossetti's — Mr. Whitley Stokes and Mr. Ormsby — told him (he told me) of this wonderful little pamphlet for sale on a stall (in St. Martin's Lane if you know where that is) to which Mr. Quaritch, finding that the British public unanimously declined to give a shilling for it, had relegated it to be disposed of for a penny. Having read it, Rossetti and I invested upwards of sixpence apiece — or possibly threepence — I would not wish to exaggerate our extravagance — in copies at that not exorbitant price. Next day we thought we might get some more for presents among friends — but the man at the stall asked twopence! Rossetti expostulated with him in terms of such humorously indignant remonstrance as none but he could ever have commanded. We took a few, and left him. In a week or two, if I am not mistaken, the remaining copies were sold at a guinea; I have since — as I dare say you have — seen copies offered for still more absurd prices. I kept my own pennyworth (the tidiest copy of the lot) and have it still.
From The Swinburne Letters, ed. Cecil Y. Lang (Yale, 1959-1962), vi. 187-188.