[W.S. ROSE] Letters from the North of Italy. Addressed to Henry Hallam London: 1819. 2 vols. in 1

[William Stewart ROSE (1775-1843)]. Letters from the North of Italy. Addressed to Henry Hallam… in two volumes. London: John Murray, 1819. 2 volumes in one volume, octavo (8 ¼ x 5 1/8in; 210 x 130mm). Pp. [i-]vi-xi[-xii], [1-]2-339[-340]; [i-]vii-viii, [1-]2-229[-230], with half titles and errata on final page. Contemporary mottled calf, the flat spine gilt (rubbed, splits to joints). Provenance: Sir John Taylor Coleridge (9 July 1790 – 11 February 1876, inscribed ‘J.T Coleridge / Park Crescent / 3/6 April 24^th 1854’, by descent); Bernard, Lord Coleridge (armorial bookplate).

First edition – a nice copy with an interesting provenance. This work made up of ‘discursive letters …addressed to Henry Hallam. They include pro-Napoleon sentiments and mention the satirical poet Giuseppe Parini’ (wikipedia).

Sir John Taylor Coleridge (9 July 1790 – 11 February 1876) was an English judge, the second son of Captain James Coleridge and nephew of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was born at Tiverton, Devon, and was educated as a Colleger (King's Scholar) at Eton College, and in 1809 gained a scholarship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. At Corpus Christi, John Keble became a close friend. Coleridge won the Chancellor's Prize for Latin verse in 1810, graduated first-class in classics in 1812, won the prizes for English and Latin essays in 1813 (as Keble had done in 1811), and became a Vinerian Scholar and a fellow of Exeter College. In 1819 he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple and practised for some years on the western circuit.

In 1824, on William Gifford's retirement, he assumed the editorship of the Quarterly Review, resigning it a year afterwards in favour of John Gibson Lockhart. In 1825 he published a well regarded edition of William Blackstone's Commentaries, and in 1832 he was made a serjeant-at-law and recorder of Exeter. In 1835 he was appointed one of the judges of the King's Bench. In 1852 his university created him a DCL, and in 1858 he resigned his judgeship, and was made a member of the Privy Council, entitling him to sit on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.