Denis Von Vizin received a thorough Russian education at home--which was unusual at that era of overwhelming foreign influence; and his inclination for literature having manifested itself in his early youth, while still at the University School for Nobles, he made various translations from foreign languages before entering the Moscow University, at the age of fifteen. During a visit which he made to St. Petersburg, while still a student at the University, he saw the theater for the first time, and soon made acquaintance with F. G. Volkhoff (already mentioned), and one of the actors. These things exerted a great influence upon him. During a visit of the Court to Moscow, in 1755, he was appointed translator to the Foreign College (Office), with the inevitable military rank, and went to live in the new capital. After divers vicissitudes of service, he wrote "The Brigadier," which he was promptly asked to read before royalty and in society. It won for him great reputation with people who were capable of appreciating the first play which was genuinely Russian in something more than externals. It jeers at ignorance coated over with an extremely thin veneer of pretentious foreign culture. The types in "The Brigadier" (written about 1747) had long been floating about in literature, and as it were, awaiting a skillful pen which should present them in full relief to the contemporary public. Von Vizin set forth these types on the stage in a clearer, more vivid manner than all previous writers who had dealt with them, as we have seen, in satires and dramas, from Kantemir to Katherine II. 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.