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 study Teutonic philology. On his return to England he graduated B.A. in 1830, proceeding M.A. in 1833, and determined to take holy orders. He appeared to have grown seriously minded; his friends believed that he would become a ‘light in the church’ (Life of Trench, i. 61), and Tennyson addressed to him the sonnet headed ‘To J. M. K.’ He was a member of the Apostles' Club, and contributed both verse and prose to the ‘Athenæum.’ Before long he was induced to join Trench, Boyd, and other young Englishmen in attempting to aid General Torrijos in his rebellion against Ferdinand VII, and being directed to make preparations for the landing of the expedition in Spain, sailed suddenly for Gibraltar in July, apparently without the knowledge of his relations. At Gibraltar he spent most of his time with Trench ‘smoking, and drinking ale, and holding forth on German metaphysics’ (Record of a Girlhood). Finding that the failure of the expedition was certain, he returned to London, to his father's house in Great Russell Street, on 21 May 1831.

His idea of taking orders being now abandoned, he went to Göttingen and other places in Germany to study under philologists, and especially under Jacob Grimm, with whom he soon became very friendly, and who spoke of him as one of his most promising pupils. His reputation as an Anglo-Saxon scholar was established in England by the publication of his edition of the poems of Beowulf in 1833, and was increased the following year by a course of lectures which he delivered on his own responsibility at Cambridge on Anglo-Saxon language and literature. At his first lecture there was a full attendance, but the number of his audience rapidly dwindled, for he did not care to treat his subject in a popular style. Still his lectures were never deserted, as has been stated (Athenæum, 4 April 1857), and were attended to the end by some distinguished scholars (Fraser's Mag. May 1857). Some slighting remarks on what had already been done in England in the study of Anglo-Saxon which he made in a review of Thorpe's ‘Analecta Anglo-Saxonica’ (Gent. Mag. new ser. 1834, i. 391 sqq.) drew upon him a violent attack in a pamphlet entitled ‘The Anglo-Saxon Meteor: a Plea in Defence of Oxford,’ supposed to have been printed in Holland under the superintendence of Joseph (afterwards Dr.) Bosworth [q. v.] In this Kemble was accused of being led in ‘leading-strings’ by Danes and Germans, and specially by Professor Rask. Letters on the subject were published by Sir F. Madden and Dr. Ingram (ib. ii. 483, and 1835, i. 43). Kemble's reputation did not suffer, and in 1837 he was described as standing high in the estimation of Lord Melbourne's government and likely to be employed in the universities commission then talked of.

From 1835 to 1844 Kemble was editor of the ‘British and Foreign Review.’ Probably in 1836 he married Nathalie Auguste, daughter of Professor Amadeus Wendt of Göttingen; the marriage was not a happy one. After his marriage Kemble appears to have resided in London for some time, employing himself in literary work, and specially in transcribing in the British Museum, and in various collegiate and cathedral libraries, the Anglo-Saxon charters afterwards printed in his ‘Codex Diplomaticus.’ On 24 Feb. 1840 he was appointed examiner of stage-plays in succession to his father, who resigned in his favour, and held that office until his death. He toiled unremittingly at his philological and historical studies, which brought him little pecuniary reward. In 1847 he was living with his children in a small house near Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, and was forced by poverty to advertise for pupils. He was then engaged on his ‘Saxons in England’ and a contemplated ‘History of Roman Law,’ though he thought it unlikely that he should find a publisher. Later he appears to have lived much abroad, apart from his wife and children, and chiefly in Hanover, his official duties being fulfilled during his long absences by W. B. Donne. While residing in Hanover in 1854 he turned his attention to pre-historic archæology, was engaged in rearranging and cataloguing the collections in the Royal Museum, and during five months was employed by the managers of the museum to make excavations in the neighbourhood of the rivers Wilmerau and the Wipperau, in the principality of Lüneburg. He entered into this new pursuit with characteristic ardour, and, though he had not received any instruction as a draughtsman, made a vast number of careful drawings of pre-historic antiquities in the museums of Munich, Berlin, and Schwerin. On his return to England he sent accounts of his discoveries to the Society of Antiquaries and the Archæological Institute, and issued the prospectus of a book to be published by subscription, with the title ‘Horæ Ferales,’ which was to set forth his ‘complete system of northern archæology,’ and to ‘supply the means of comparison between the principal types of objects of archæological interest from different ages and different parts of the world.’ The committee of the Art Treasures Exhibition at Manchester employed him to collect and arrange Keltic and Roman antiquities