cases of dire extremity against persons considered guilty of injustice
and wrong doing. It is to such fearful imprecations that the
misfortune and downfall of certain houses have been attributed,
although, it may be, centuries have elapsed before their final
fulfilment. Such curses, too, unlike the fatal "Curse of Kehama," have
rarely turned into blessings, nor have they been thought to be as
harmless as the curse of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Rheims, who
banned the thief--both body and soul, his life and for ever--who stole
his ring. It was an awful curse, but none of the guests seemed the
worse for it, except the poor jackdaw who had hidden the ring in some
sly corner as a practical joke. But, if we are to believe traditionary
and historical lore, only too many of the curses recorded in the
chronicles of family history have been productive of the most
disastrous results, reminding us of that dreadful malediction given by
Byron in his "Curse of Minerva":

"So let him stand, through ages yet unborn,
Fix'd statue on the pedestal of scorn."

A popular form of curse seems to have been the gradual collapse of the
family name from failure of male-issue; and although there is,
perhaps, no more romantic chapter in the vicissitudes of many a great
house than its final extinction from lack of an heir, such a disaster
is all the more to be lamented when resulting from a curse. A
catastrophe of this kind was that connected with the M'Alister family
of Scotch notoriety. The story goes that many generations back, one of
their chiefs, M'Alister Indre--an intrepid warrior who feared neither
God nor man--in a skirmish with a neighbouring clan, captured a
widow's two sons, and in a most heartless manner caused them to be
hanged on a gibbet erected almost before her very door. It was in vain