Within the few last years this tapestry has been the subject of three interesting papers, read before the Society of Antiquaries. The first and most important, from the pen of the Abbé de la Rue[89], has for its object the refutation of the opinions of Montfaucon and Lancelot, who, following the commonly received tradition, refer the tapestry to the time of the conquest, and represent it as the work of Queen Matilda and her attendant damsels. The Abbé's principal arguments are derived from the silence of contemporary authors, and especially of Wace, who was himself a canon of Bayeux;--from its being unnoticed in any charters or deeds of gift connected with the cathedral;--from the improbability that so large a roll of such perishable materials would have escaped destruction when the cathedral was burned in 1106;--from the unfinished state of the story;--from its containing some Saxon names unknown to the Normans;--and from representations taken from the fables of Æsop being worked on the borders, whereas the northern parts of Europe were not made acquainted with these fables, till the translation of a portion of them by Henry Ist, who thence obtained his surname of _Beauclerk_.--These and other considerations, have led the learned Abbé to coincide in opinion with Lord Littleton and Mr. Hume, that the tapestry is the production of the Empress Maud, and that it was in reality wrought by natives of our own island, whose inhabitants were at that time so famous for labors of this description, that the common mode of expressing a piece of embroidery, was by calling it _an English work_.