to the period
of its execution--may be considered as well nigh, if not wholly, at
rest. These essays appear in the XVIIIth and XIXth volumes of the
Archaeologia. The Abbe de la Rue contended that this Tapestry was
worked in the time of the second Matilda, or the Empress Maud, which
would bring it to the earlier part of the XIIth century. The
antiquaries above mentioned contend, with greater probability, that it
is a performance of the period which it professes to commemorate;
namely, of the defeat of Harold at the battle of Hastings, and
consequently of the acquiring of the Crown of England, by conquest, on
the part of William. This latter therefore brings it to the period of
about 1066, to 1088--so that, after all, the difference of opinion is
only whether this Tapestry be fifty years older or younger, than the
respective advocates contend.

But the most copious, particular, and in my humble judgment the most
satisfactory, disquisition upon the date of this singular historical
monument, is entitled, "_A Defence of the early Antiquity of the
Bayeux Tapestry_," by Thomas Amyot, Esq. immediately following Mr.
Stothard's communication, in the work just referred to. It is at
direct issue with all the hypotheses of the Abbe de la Rue, and in my
opinion the results are triumphantly established. Whether the
_Normans_ or the _English_ worked it, is perfectly a secondary
consideration. The chief objections, taken by the Abbe, against its
being a production of the XIth century, consist in, first, its not
being mentioned among the treasures possessed by the Conqueror at his
decease:--secondly, that, if the Tapestry were deposited in the
church, it must have suffered, if not have been annihilated, at the
storming of Bayeux and the destruction of the Cathedral by fire in the
reign of Henry I., A.D. 1106:--thirdly, the silence of _Wace_ upon the
subject,--who wrote his metrical histories nearly a century after the
Tapestry is supposed to have been executed." The latter is chiefly
insisted upon by the learned Abbe; who, which ever champion come off
victorious in this archaeological warfare, must at any rate receive the
best thanks of the antiquary for the methodical and erudite manner in
which he has conducted his attacks.

At the first blush it cannot fail to strike us that the Abbe de la
Ru