[TO THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Stn,—Mr. C. M. Gaskell's
letter to the Spectator of May 20th about the alleged mutilation of the Bayeux Tapestry by the late Mrs. Charles Stothard (who by her second marriage became Mrs. Bray, and was well known as a novelist) obliges me for a third time to give the legend an emphatic denial. This lady was my aunt, and some time before her death in 1883, at her express desire, I wrote to the Times a letter to relieve her from the unjust accusation. This letter was endorsed by a leading article in that journal, and after some correspondence with the authorities at Bayeux it led to the correction of the erroneous statement placarded in the museum at that place. The fable was, however, recently resuscitated by a Mr. Boase in a letter published in Notes and Queries, and again I had to contradict it. Antiquarians who attempt to verify legends by their memories should take care lest in doing so they endanger the reputation of others. No such self-condemnatory document as that which Mr. C. M. Gaskell imagines he saw was ever written by my late aunt, nor was the piece of tapestry cut out or abstracted by her. It was in the possession of her first husband before he married her, and before she went to Bayeux. Many years after his death the fragment found its way to the South Kensington Museum, whence it was returned to the Bayeux authorities. An accurate statement of the case will be found in the preface to Mrs. Bray's autobiography, published in 1884.-1 am, Sir, &c., [We cannot continue this controversy.—En. Spectator.]
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