The Political Litany
The Political Litany was one of four liturgical parodies Hone composed and published in very early 1817. Together with The Late John Wilkes's Catechism and The Sinecurist's Creed, The Political Litany was one of the works singled out for prosecution by the Attorney General. (For reasons that are not at all clear, the fourth parody, The Bullet Te Deum, was ignored by the authorities.) Borrowing its form from the litany of the Book of Common Prayer, The Political Litany uses the call-and-response form to dramatize the social, economic, and political demands of the reformers while simultaneously satirizing the pretensions of the current parliament.
These links lead to the materials making up this short, hypertext edition:
- Facsimile title page from Hone's 1817 edition
- Full text of the parody
