The first important recorded act of Pericles falls in 463, when he helped to prosecute Cimon on a charge of bribery, after the latter's Thasian campaign; but as the accusation could hardly have been meant seriously Pericles was perhaps put forward only as a lay-figure.
They are remarkable for skill in the massing of light and shade, richness and delicacy of colouring, and for the admirable style in which the drapery of the figures is handled, Bartolommeo having been the first to introduce and use the lay-figure with joints.
A hero, who was probably originally intended to demonstrate the failure of the vacillating temperament when brought face to face with the problems of art, proved ill-adapted to demonstrate those precepts for the guidance of life with which the Lehrjahre closes; unstable of purpose, Wilhelm Meister is not so much an illustration of the author's life-philosophy as a lay-figure on which he demonstrates his views.
