  Coleridge called the letters from Germany which he published in "The Friend" of 1809 the "Letters of Satyrane". He was fond of masquerading under the name of this allegorical personage of the "Faery Queen"; and in his "Tombless Epitaph" he described himself as Idolocrastes Satyrane. Under this disguise he looked upon himself as the spokesman of the Idea of the Omnipresence of the Deity. In order to appreciate the following beautiful letter, one of the finest Coleridge ever wrote, the reader should peruse Coleridge's "Aeolian Harp", "Lines written on leaving a Place of Retirement", "The Lime-Tree Bower", and Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey". Wordsworth's sonnet, "It is a beauteous evening", and Coleridge's own "Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni", also belong to the same feeling for the God of Nature, but they were composed after the letter "Over the Brocken". Clement Carlyon, who is the chief authority for the life of Coleridge during his stay at Gttingen, gives a lively account of the ascent of the Brocken, which took place on Whit Sunday, 12th May 1799. The party visited the "magic circle of stones where the fairies assembled," and halted for the first time at the village of Satzfeld, a romantic village, "a bright moonlight at night, and the nightingale heard." Coleridge was in high spirits, and kept talking all the way, discoursing on his favourite topics. Sublimity was defined as a "suspension of the powers of comparison"; "no animal but man can be struck with wonder"; Shakespeare owed his success largely to the cheering breath of popular applause, the enthusiastic gale of admiration. The English Divines were applauded by Coleridge, Jeremy Taylor prominently; and a play by Hans Sachs was preferred to a play of Kotzebue; from which he launched into a discourse on Miracle plays. Coleridge's conversation was peppered with puns, some of which Carlyon quotes. Carlyon also notices that their course up the mountain was impeded by |
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