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 p 20mark 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 an acknowledgment of the regal dignity which he had just assumed.  It is said that instructions written in cypher were sent to him, with particular directions that he should not apply on this subject to Father Wolff, the Emperor’s confessor.  The person who copied these instructions, however, happened to omit the word not in the copy in cypher.  Bartholdi was surprised at the order, but obeyed it and made the matter known to Wolff; who, in the greatest astonishment, declared that although he had always been hostile to the measure, he could not resist this proof of the Elector’s confidence, which had made a deep impression upon him. p 21It was thought that the mediation of the confessor had much to do with the accomplishment of the Elector’s wishes.

Misquotations form a branch of literary blunders which may be mentioned here.

The text ``He may run that readeth it’’ (Hab. ii. 2) is almost invariably quoted as ``He who runs may read’’; and the Divine condemnation ``In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread’ (Gen. iii. 19) is usually quoted as ``sweat of thy brow.’’

The manner in which Dr. Johnson selected the quotations for his Dictionary is well known, and as a general rule these are tolerably accurate; but under the thirteenth heading of the verb to sit will be found a curious perversion of a text of Scripture.  There we read, ``Asses are ye that sit in judgement—­ Judges,’’ but of course there is no such passage in the Bible.  The correct reading of the tenth verse of the fifth chapter is:  ``Speak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk by the way.’’