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 Rue’s positions are all of a negative character; and that, according to the strict rules of logic, it must not be admitted, that because such and such writers have not noticed a circumstance, therefore that circumstance or event cannot have taken place.  The first two grounds of objection have, I think, been fairly set aside by Mr. Amyot.  As to the third objection, Mr. A. remarks—­“But it seems that Wace has not only not quoted the tapestry, but has varied from it in a manner which proves that he had never seen it.  The instances given of this variation are, however, a little unfortunate.  The first of them is very unimportant, for the difference merely consists in placing a figure