Blake’s savagely funny annotations to Robert Thornton’s T...

Blake’s savagely funny annotations to Robert Thornton’s The Lord’s Prayer, Newly Translated (1827). He does his own translation, of Thornton’s interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer into plain English:

Our Father Augustus Caesar who art in these thy Substantial Astronomical Telescopic Heavens, Holiness to thy Name or Title & reverence to thy Shadow. Thy Kingship come upon Earth first & thence in Heaven. Give us day by day our Real Taxed Substantial Money bought Bread & deliver from the Holy Ghost (so we call Nature) whatever cannot be Taxed, for all is debts & Taxes between Caesar & us & one another. Lead us not to read the Bible but let our Bible be Virgil & Shakspeare & deliver us from Poverty in Jesus that Evil one. For thine is the Kingship (or Allegoric Godship) & the Power or War & the Glory or Law Ages after Ages in thy Descendents, for God is only an Allegory of Kings & nothing Else. Amen.

(Some guesswork involved in the text and punctuation there; every Blake editor struggles with this.)