[1] Adolphus was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and at St. John's College, Oxford.
", in which he discussed the authorship of the then anonymous Waverley novels, and fixed it upon Sir Walter Scott.
This conclusion was based on the resemblance of the novels in general style and method to the poems acknowledged by Scott.
Scott thought at first that the letters were written by Reginald Heber, afterwards bishop of Calcutta, and the discovery of J. L. Adolphus's identity led to a warm friendship.
He was the author of "Letters from Spain" in 1856 and 1857 (1858), and was completing his father's "History of England" at the time of his death on 24 December 1862.