He took care of Hans Christian Andersen when the later writer first arrived in Copenhagen as a child and remained his loyal friend and supporter for the remainder of his life.

He was taught at home, first by his parents and then by private teachers, including Christopher Frimann Omsen and the priest Michael Gottlieb Birckner.

This left him with enough time to study foreign languages and follow lectures on philosophy, mathematics and physics at the university.

He was a member of Drejer's Club where many of the leading writers of the time met and was himself a contributor to Knud Lyne Rahbek's Minerva and other journals.

His contacts among high-ranking civil servants got him a position as a volunteer in the Treasury (Rentekammeret) where he mainly worked in the agriculture departments.

In 1815 he anonymously published as short article in Minerva in which he mocked the indolent and incompetent civil servants who only thought of their work as long as they were in their offices instead of "bringing it along wherever they go, going to bed with it at night and getting up with it in the morning".

Jonas Collin (Lars Brygmann) is depicted in the 2005 DR television series Unge Andersen.