Arthur Freeman and Janet Ing Freeman discuss this epitaph on pages 468-469 of their exhaustive John Payne Collier: Scholarship & Forgery in the Nineteenth Century, always my go-to source for any question involving Collier. After discussing another Burbage epitaph presented by Collier with additions that were almost certainly his handiwork (and suspected as such by Chambers and others), the Freemans continue:
"Another elegy, from an unidentified manuscript, was said to contrast 'the public grief for the death of a player with the comparative indifference with which the news of the demise of the Queen of James I. had been received' (p. 56), and John took pains to explain the object of the author's satire, and to point out that 'the two lines at the commencement are copied from the opening of the first part of "Henry VI"'. This sonnet was duly credited and reprinted in part by C. C. Stopes in 1913 [see note 1 below], but elicited no comment from Chambers or Nungezer, and perhaps deserves none."
After printing the poem, including the title "De Burbagio de Regina", they continue:
"Phrases like 'vouchsafed to die' and 'is not one eye dry', the usage of 'act' (for 'play') and 'real things', and the quibble on 'queens' and 'queans of the theatre' are about as Jacobean as Collier's "Sonnet to Punch" is Byronic, and perhaps he half intended the text as a tease [note 2]."
[note 1]: "Burbage and Shakespeare's Stage, pp. 117-18. In arranging her quotations Stopes implied that the text was to be found in BL Sloane MS 1786, like the genuine verse epitaph beginning 'This life's a play'; but it is not."
[note 2]: "He might at least have taken refuge, if challenged, in the wording of his description (p. 56), which never specifically declares the lines to be contemporary with the event."
Later, in their exhaustive bibliiography of all of Collier's writings, the Freeman write of this poem (p. 1191, item 20): "Collier also prints, without giving a source, an anonymous fourteen-line elegy titled 'De Burbagio et Regina', the first two lines of which ('Hung be the heavens with black', etc.) are taken from 1 Henry VI; for discussion of what is surely Collier's own composition see above, pages 468-69."
Dave Kathman
On Oct 18, 2010, at 9:42 AM, Abigail Ann Young wrote:
PLease copy responses to Tanya as well since she is not subscribed to the list. Thanks! Abigail
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: a question for REED-L
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 11:52:31 -0400
From: Tanya Hagen <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
REED's London Theatres Bibliography crew would be most grateful for any assistance in tracking down an original source. In /Memoirs of the Principal Actors in the Plays of Shakespeare/, p 19, Collier refers to a manuscript epitaph entitled 'De Burbagio et Regina,' but provides no further information. As far as we understand, this is not one of Collier's notorious forgeries. Anyone knowing anything will be doing us a huge favour by getting in touch.
Kind thanks,
Tanya Hagen
