In the Museum at Lille there are two fine finials, one of these is carefully analysed to a large scale by Burges in his book of drawings and the other, wholly made up of castings, is given here from a photograph. In the Museum in the splendid old hall of the Hôtel Dieu at Angers are two, sketches of which are given in Figs. 57 and 58. The leaves and scrolls are cast with ribs to make them stiffer. The later Gothic and Renaissance finials are often charmingly suggestive in the _subject_ of their design--some have figures, a huntsman at Bourges, a Cupid shooting arrows or a man-at-arms; some are made up with suns or sun and moon, or moon and stars, as at Troyes; at Beaune, cup-like forms are made of openwork for birds’ nests. Again we find a vase of lilies or branch of drooping thistles, a pigeon, a coronet, or personal devices and badges. Mr. Burges noted how the early poets spoke of the _music_ of the vanes, and there can be little doubt that some of them were intended to resound to the wind: in the _Hypnerotomachia_ (1499) a finial is shown with little bells hanging to chains which swang against a metal bowl; Viollet-le-Duc also tells us that in certain crestings he found a singular musical conceit in contrivances for producing “sifflements” under the action of the wind--Æolian flutes. [Illustration: FIG. 58.--Angers.] [Illustration: FIG. 59.--Finials, Bourges.] At Bourges on the Hôtels Jacques Cœur and Cujas are some finials consisting of little more than a lead-covered stick bearing a rod and girouettes. Flags were properly only set up in the due heraldic precedence of the proprietor, a Knight might fly a pennon and so on; they were centred at times on a piece of agate to reduce the friction of revolution. We have only to look at the views of old towns given in manuscripts to see how the mediæval mind delighted in these flag finials; but there are probably not half a dozen old ones now left in England. When there are many revolving flags to the finials on one building and these are bright with new gold, they have the delightful property of flashing the light to a great distance. The gilt flags on the pinnacles of the west front of Wells Cathedral twinkle simultaneously against the setting sun. [Illustration: FIG. 60.--From Newcastle.] Crestings, sometimes large and most ornamental, were formed along the ridges of French buildings, especially in the early Renaissance.[30] These ornamental ridges, especially in this exaggerated form, are not English. [30] _See_ De la Queriere or Viollet-le-Duc (_Art._ “Crête”). A row of fleurs-de-lis exists at Exeter, a portion of which is in the Architectural Museum, Westminster: and probably many other roofs had similar crestings. § XVIII. OF CISTERNS, ETC.