He had appeared in public, however, as an author, before this time; having composed some verses which were printed in a forgotten periodical called Arliss's Magazine. The loss of his first situation, through the bankruptcy of his master, obliged him to seek employment anew in the printing-office of one Mr. Bigg, who was also the editor of a newspaper called the _Sunday Monitor_. In this journal appeared his first article--a critical paper on _Der Freischütz_. He had gone to the theatre with an order to see the opera; and had been so struck by the supernatural drama and the wonderful music to which it was set, that he noted down his impressions of the performance, and afterwards dropped what he had written, anonymously, into the editor's box. The next morning, his own article was handed to him to set up in type for the forthcoming number of the Sunday Monitor. After this first encouragement, he began to use his pen frequently in the minor periodicals of the time; still sticking to the printer's work, however, and still living at home with his family. The success of his little farce at Sadler's Wells led to his writing three more pieces for that theatre. They all succeeded; and the managers of some of the other minor theatres began to look after the new man. Just at this time, when his career as dramatist and journalist was beginning to open before him, his father died. After that loss, the next important event in his life was his marriage. In the year eighteen hundred and twenty-four, when he was twenty-one years of age, he married his "first love," Miss Mary Swann, the daughter of a gentleman who held an appointment in the Post Office. He and his bride settled, with his mother and sister and a kind old friend of his boyish days, in Holborn; and here--devoting his days to the newspapers, and his evenings to the drama--the newly-married man started as author by profession, and met the world and its cares bravely at the point of the pen.