"That little boy, relying in his simple faith upon the wisdom and truthfulness of his father, believed for a long time, that the weathercock on the top of the barn, could bring the cold north, or the warm south wind, by turning upon its perch.

" The Triple Alliance gave a simultaneous start as though they had received an electric shock, and their heads turned round like three weathercocks.

And if you desire an example, let me give you weathercocks.

No man can walk for day after day along this tremendous road which leads us straight as a javelin thrust back through all the lies and excuses to the truth of our origins, without noticing, and especially since he must keep an eye on the wind and the weather, the astonishing number of weathercocks there be between London and Canterbury.

Everyone of these weathercocks crows there on the tip top of the steeple over each town or village because of an order of the Pope.

In spite of the weathercocks and their watchfulness, however, the memories of the great pilgrimage between Faversham and Harbledown are dishearteningly few.

Pray accept this for a letter, and believe me, with sincere regards, yours, C.L. Wainewright, the notorious poisoner, who, under the name of "Janus Weathercock," contributed various frothy papers on art and literature to the "London Magazine.

When, when will day Begin to dawn, whose new-born ray May gild the weathercocks of our devotion, And give our unsouled souls new motion? Sweet Phosphor, bring the day: The light will fray These horrid mists: sweet Phosphor, bring the day.

It is a little village of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists in the early time of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!), and there were some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks.

They built upon the sand wretched tenements, which they were continually pulling down and rebuilding, but in which there was neither altar nor sacrifice; they had weathercocks on their roofs, and their doctrines changed with the wind, consequently they were for ever in opposition one with the other.

(See The Weathercock, an Essay on Rotation in Office, by Sir Airy Vane.)

Nobody can mistake the four pepper-boxes, with the four weathercocks on them, surmounting the corners of a great square castle, a little way from the river's edge.

I'm a spineless jellyfish, a weathercock that whirls to every emotional breeze.

"I envied every bird," he goes on, "that sat singing on the topmost bough of the great, century-old cherry tree; the weathercock on our barn seemed to me to whirl in a higher region of the air; and to rise from the earth in a balloon was a bliss which I would almost have given my life to enjoy."

Weathercocks do not always show the real direction of a very gentle wind.

Griffins, half-moons, foxes, or figures of St. Margaret and the dragon, are not good shapes for weathercocks, which ought to be plain fans, the large surface of one side being counterbalanced against the weight of the other.

But, perhaps, after all, the most charming effect was produced by the pyramids, surmounted by weathercocks.

As long as words a different sense will bear, And each may be his own interpreter, Our airy faith will no foundation find: The word's a weathercock for every wind: The Bear, the Fox, the Wolf, by turns prevail; The most in power supplies the present gale.

His standpoint seemed to be that landlords were responsible for repairs only to lightning conductors and weathercocks.

By the way, a natural weathercock instead of the gilded vane, as defined by Brown, would have been a rara avis: "A kingfisher hanged by the bill, converting the breast to that point of the horizon whence the wind doth blow, is a very strange introducing of natural weathercocks.

"The people are weathercocks; they will stone to-morrow the same men whom they bless to-day.

The long bright silver of Cheapside I see, Her gilded weathercocks on roof and spire Exulting eastward in the western fire; All things recall one heart-sick memory: Ever the rustle of the advancing foam, The surges' desolate thunder, and the cry As of some lone babe in the whispering sky; Ever I peer into the restless gloom To where a ship clad dim and loftily Looms steadfast in the wonder of her home.

In a niche at the very summit they have crowded a statue of Charles the Second, with a special pair of shoe-strings, big enough for a weathercock.

These tongues leaped aloft with a sudden impulse, and shed a revelation of light over acres of houses, and brought out church steeples in vivid relief against the sky, and put a new gilding on storm-beat en vanes and weathercocks.

After about a quarter of a mile of this dreary avenue, we came to a broad area of several acres laid out in the Italian style with fountains and terraces, at the upper end of which stood the housea feudal, moyen-âge French chateau, with irregular wings, steep slated roofings, innumerable windows, and fantastic steeple-topped turrets sheeted with lead and capped with grotesque gilded weathercocks.