The Testament consists of a general collection of rules concerning worldly wisdom, applied to contemporary needs and views, though his son was already grown up and in the government service, so that much of its contents are of general application only, and were introduced to round out the work, and for the edification of the rising generation.

It is the last specimen of a class of works in which, as has been seen, Russian literature is rich.
The first Russian who devoted himself exclusively to literature was Vasily Kirillovitch Trediakovsky (born at Astrakhan in 1703), the son and grandson of priests, who was educated in Russia and abroad.

When he decided, on his return from abroad in 1730, to adopt literature as a profession, the times were extremely unpropitious.

He had, long before, during his student days in Moscow, written syllabic verses, an elegy on the death of Peter the Great, and a couple of dramas, which were acted by his fellow-students.

In 1732 he became the court poet, or laureate and panegyrist, and wrote, to the order of the Empress Anna Ioannovna, speeches and laudatory addresses, which he presented to the grandees, receiving in return various gifts in accordance with the custom of the epoch.