Its plot was complicated without being confused.
It contained many striking situations; the dialogue was lively, but there was more humor in the surprises and discoveries than verbal wit in the repartees.

Some strokes of satire were leveled at the grasping disposition of the existing race of courtiers, whose whole trade was represented as consisting of getting all they could, and asking for more; and others at the tricks of modern politicians, feigning to be ignorant of what they knew; to know what they were ignorant of; to keep secrets which had no existence; to lock the door to mend a pen; to appear deep when they were shallow; to set spies in motion, and to intercept letters; to try to ennoble the poverty of their means by the grandeur of their objects.

The censorship, of course, did not escape.

The scene being laid in Spain, Figaro affirmed that at Madrid the liberty of the press meant that, so long as an author spoke neither of authority, nor of public worship, nor of politics, nor of morality, nor of men in power, nor of the opera, nor of any other exhibition, nor of any one who was concerned in any thing, he might print what be pleased.

The lawyers were reproached with a scrupulous adherence to forms, and a connivance at needless delays, which put money into their pockets; and the nobles, with thinking that, as long as they gave themselves the trouble to be born, society had no right to expect from them any further useful action.