Family pride is sometimes the cause
of exceedingly foolish blunders. The
following amusing passage in Anderson's
_Genealogical History of the House of Yvery_
(1742) illustrates a form of pride ridiculed
by Lord Chesterfield when he set up on
his walls the portraits of Adam de Stanhope
and Eve de Stanhope. The having a
stutterer in the family will appear to most
readers to be a strange cause of pride.
The author writes: ``It was usual in ancient
times with the greatest families, and is by
all genealogists allowed to be a mighty
evidence of dignity, to use certain nicknames
which the French call sobriquets . . .
such as `the Lame' or `the Black.'. . .
The house of Yvery, not deficient in any

mark or proof of greatness and antiquity,
abounds at different periods in instances
of this nature. Roger, a younger son of
William Youel de Perceval, was surnamed
Balbus or the Stutterer.''

Sometimes a blunder has turned out
fortunate in its consequences; and a
striking instance of this is recorded in the
history of Prussia. Frederic I. charged
his ambassador Bartholdi with the mission
of procuring from the Emperor of Germany