Son of Benjamin and Mary Kett, he was born in the parish of St. Peter's Mancroft, Norwich, 12 February 1761.
He was Bampton lecturer in 1790, and in the same year played the major part in raising a subscription for John Uri, when he was discharged by the delegates of the Clarendon Press from his position as cataloguer of the Oriental manuscripts in the Bodleian Library.
On the first occasion he published, as his credentials for the professorship, a volume of Juvenile Poems, most of which had appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, but he afterwards endeavoured to suppress it.
[2] His person lent itself to caricature, and in June 1807 he was depicted by Robert Dighton in 'A View from Trinity' as a tall man, with his hands behind his back.
Through Joseph Chapman, President of his college, he held the incumbency of Elsfield, near Oxford, from 22 May 1785 to 28 June 1804; from July 1812 to 1820 he was vicar of Sutton Benger, Wiltshire, and in 1814 he was nominated by Bishop George Tomline as perpetual curate of Hykeham in Lincolnshire.
His life of William Benwell was appended to a volume of Poems, Odes, Prologues, and Epilogues spoken at Reading School, 1804, pp.
To Frederic Shoberl's translation of François-René de Chateaubriand's Beauties of Christianity he supplied a preface and notes.
He left many manuscripts, including an edition of the Greek proverb collection by Eilhardus Lubinus, with English translation and notes.