, 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
that, with well nigh heartbroken tears, she denounced his iniquitous
act, for his comrades and himself only laughed and scoffed, and even
threatened to burn her cottage to the ground. But as the crimson and
setting rays of a summer sun fell on the lifeless bodies of her two
sons, her eyes met those of him who had so basely and cruelly wronged
her, and, after once more stigmatizing his barbarity, with deep
measured voice she pronounced these ominous words, embodying a curse
which M'Alister Indre little anticipated would so surely come to pass.
"I suffer now," said the grief-stricken woman, "but you shall suffer
always--you have made me childless, but you and yours shall be
heirless for ever--never shall there be a son to the house of
M'Alister."

These words were treated with contempt by M'Alister Indre, who mocked
and laughed at the malicious prattle of a woman's tongue. But time
proved only too truly how persistently the curse of the bereaved woman
clung to the race of her oppressors, and, as Sir Bernard Burke
remarks, it was in the reign of Queen Anne that the hopes of the house
of M'Alister "flourished for the last time, they were blighted for
ever." The closing scene of this prophetic curse was equally tragic
and romantic; for, whilst espousing the cause of the Pretender, the
young and promising heir of the M'Alisters was taken prisoner, and
with many others put to death. Incensed at the wrongs of his exiled
monarch, and full of fiery impulse, he had secretly left his youthful
wife, and joined the arm