[5] The epistles, written and performed in different styles, from drinking songs and laments to pastorales, paint a complex picture of the life of the city during the 18th century.

A frequent theme is the demimonde, with Fredman's cheerfully drunk Order of Bacchus,[6] a loose company of ragged men who favour strong drink and prostitutes.

At the same time as depicting this realist side of life, Bellman creates a rococo picture, full of classical allusion, following the French post-Baroque poets.

The women, including the beautiful Ulla Winblad, are "nymphs", while Neptune's festive troop of followers and sea-creatures sport in Stockholm's waters.

"), imitative of a motley crowd waiting on the Stockholm quayside at Skeppsbron in the old town, Gamla stan, with people relaxing while others try to move about.

The melody was said by Nils Afzelius [sv] to come from the aria "Regardez ces traits" in Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny's opera Le cadi dupé, but this is disputed by the musicologist James Massengale.

[12][13] Like the spoken sections, the lyrics portray the life of Stockholm, with mentions of buildings, ships, flags, and the noisy mixed crowd on a boat, crossing the harbour from Skeppsbron quay to Djurgården.

Movitz blow your horn - - - The waves slap, - - - The boat goes, - - - Among yachts and skiffs the Spaniard stands The sail's tip - - - Is going in soon - - - In Cádiz and Dublin.

[17] Upon an upside-down, overturned hull, that echoes with yammer and clatter, shoved and crowded by grandads and youths, companions, mamselles, and ladies, I stand on my toes with spyglass in hand and sigh at the flash of the cannons.

The scholar of Swedish literature Lars Lönnroth writes that the long prose section of the "famous"[18] epistle 33 is the culmination of Bellman's skill with one particular dramatic technique, the ability to depict a whole crowd at once, among them his invented cast, Fredman's drinking-companions.

Evidently Fredman is no longer, as in some of the epistles, a preacher or apostle of the gospel of brandy-drinking, but merely one of many actors in the scene, "drowned in a sea of voices".

[19] The Bellman Society observes that Sweden's capital has never been portrayed with mightier trumpet blasts or more skilfully than in this Epistle, "Swedish literature's most congenial portrait of Stockholm.

[21] Writing in the Haga-Brunnsviken Nytt, Gunnel Bergström notes that in verse 3, Ulla Winblad climbs on board, and Movitz becomes randy.