at the stern instead of the prow of a ship, and in giving him a bow instead of a trumpet.  From an authority quoted by the Abbe himself, it appears that, with regard to this latter fact, the Tapestry was right, and Wace was wrong; and thus an argument is unintentionally furnished in favour of the superior antiquity of the Tapestry.  The second instance of variation, namely, that relating to Taillefer’s sword, may be easily dismissed; since, after all, it now appears, from Mr. Stothard’s examination, that neither Taillefer nor his sword is to be found in the Tapestry,” &c.  But it is chiefly from the names of AELFGYVA and WADARD, inscribed over some of the figures, that I apprehend the conclusion in favour of the Tapestry’s being nearly a contemporaneous production, may be safely drawn.

It is quite clear that these names belong to persons living when the work was in progress, or within the recollection of the workers, and that they were attached to persons of some particular note or celebrity, or rather perhaps of local importance.  An eyewitness, or a contemporary only would have introduced them.  They would not have lived in the memory of a person, whether mechanic or historian, who lived a century after the event.  No antiquary has yet fairly appropriated these names, and more especially the second.  It follows therefore that they would not have been introduced had they not been in existence at the time; and in confirmation of that of WADARD, it seems that Mr. Henry Ellis (Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries) “confirmed Mr. Amyot’s conjecture on that subject, by the references with which he furnished him to Domesday Book, where his name occurs in no less than six counties, as holding lands of large extent under Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, the tenant in capite of those properties from the crown.  That he was not a guard or centinel, as the Abbe de la Rue supposes, but that he held an office of rank in the household of either William or Odo, seems now decided beyond a doubt.”  Mr. Amyot thus spiritedly concludes:—­alluding to the successful completion of Mr. Stothard’s copy of the entire original roll.—­“Yet if the BAYEUX TAPESTRY be not history of the first class, it is perhaps something better.  It exhibits general traits, elsewhere sought in vain, of the costume and manners of that age, which, of all others, if we except the period of the Reformation, ought to be the most interesting to us;—­that age, which gave us a new race of monarchs, bringing with them new landholders, new laws, and almost a new language.”

Mr. Amyot has subjoined a specimen of his own poetical powers in describing “the Minstrel TAILLEFER’S achievements,” in the battle of Hastings, from the old Norman lays of GAIMAR and WACE.  I can only find room for the first few verses.  The poem is entitled,

      THE ONSET OF TAILLEFER.