The characters, as Von Vizin depicted them, were no longer abstract monsters, agglomerations of evil qualities, but near relations to everybody.

Moreover, the drama was gay, playful--not even the moral was gloomy--with not a single depressing line.
Totally different is "The Hobbledehoy" ("Nedorosl," 1782), which is even more celebrated, and was written towards the close of a long career in the service, filled with varied and trying experiences--part of which arose from the difficulties of the author's own noble character in contact with a different type of men and from his attacks on abuses of all sorts--after a profound study of life in the middle and higher classes of Russian court and diplomatic circles.

The difference between "The Brigadier" and "The Hobbledehoy" is so great that they must be read in the order of their production if the full value of the impression created by the earlier play is to be appreciated.

"The Hobbledehoy" was wholly unlike anything which had been seen hitherto in Russian literature.

Had the authorities permitted Von Vizin to print his collection of satires, he would have stood at the head of that branch of literature in that epoch; as it was, this fine comedy contains the fullest expression of his dissatisfaction at the established order of things in general.