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Numerous pinnacles with vanes, as shown on the tower, prevailedfrom the time of Edward III . till the extinction of the Tudors. Rich-mond and Nonsuch abounded with small banners, blazoned witharmorial badges; and a louvre over the hall at Cowdry might vie innumber of them with either of these palaces.

Chaucer , in his castle of |Nra0aunt JUgattl, mentions fanes ontowers as objects of great beauty.

“ ©fie tofon's fife full pleasant sfial ge finite,

Mttfi pfianls fresfie, turning bntfi eberle fm'ntie.”

A gain:

“ aloft tfie tofores tfie golhen fanes gootreBgie tm'tfi tfie fngntJe mafte ful sfnecte among;

©fiem for to fieare It foas great melolrte.”

Warton, commenting on this passage, says, “ our author here paintsfrom the life. An excessive agglomeration of turrets, with their fans, isone of the characteristic marks of the florid mode of architecture.”

This poet, as well as others, often speaks of musical vanes; butwhat they were, cannot readily be determined from any information wepossess concerning them, either poetical or technical. In his Ht'CIUn healludes to vanes being in the shapes of birds.* On the towers

“ & tfiousnntr fam's, afe turning,

©ntunfo fiatf, antf brltfties singing331bers, anti on etfi fane a palreSSHltfi optn moutfi agalne tfie atre.”

* The information given by Vitruvius respecting the tower built at Athens by AndronicusCyrrhestes, is the most ancient we are acquainted with, concerning any mode of observing thedirection of the wind. ■ 1 •

In Europe the custom of placing vanes on church-steeples is very old; and as they weremade in the figure of a cock, have been thence denominated “ weather-cocks.”

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