In 1820 his father tried to introduce him into Maudslay's engineering establishment at Lambeth, and afterwards to apprentice him to Nash the architect.
The boy was wayward and restless, but in 1823 surprised his father by producing some literary essays, which were printed in the Weekly Examiner; and in the same year he became a reporter for the Morning Chronicle, a position which he retained till his death.
He wrote occasional articles, one of which, The Executioner, was published in Blackwood's Magazine, and he founded a weekly Shakespeare club called "The Mulberries".
His elder sister Claire explained to her friend Jane Williams: But in our family, if you cannot write an epic or novel, that by its originality knocks all other novels on the head, you are a despicable creature, not worth acknowledging.
[1]He died of cholera on 8 September 1832, during a global pandemic of the disease, leaving a widow but no children.