The fourth (or, in the order of their appearance, the first) class of Shevtchenko's poems consists of ballads in the folk-style, and sentimental, romantic pieces, which have no political or social tendencies.

Such are the ballads, "The Cause," "The Drowned Woman," "The Water Nymph," "The Poplar Tree," which he wrote in St.
Petersburg on scraps of paper in the summer garden.
Of less talent and importance was a fellow-citizen of Koltzoff, Ivan Savitch Nikitin (1824-1861).

Perhaps the most interesting thing about him is that Count L.N.Tolstoy took a lively interest in this gifted plebeian, and offered to bear the cost of publishing his poems, regarding him as a new Koltzoff.

Count Tolstoy has since arrived at the conclusion that all poetry is futile and an unnecessary waste of time, as the same ideas can be much better expressed in prose, and with less labor to both writer and reader.
The poet from the educated classes of society who deserves the most attention as a member of Nekrasoff's camp, is Alexyei Nikolaevitch Pleshtcheeff (1825-1893), the descendant of an ancient family of the nobility.

In 1849 he was arrested for suspected implication in what is known as "The Petrashevsky Affair" (from the name of the leader), and imprisoned in the Peter-Paul Fortress.