"_Tipstaff_, being a seventh son, used to cure the _king's evil_; but his rascally descendants are so far from having that healing quality, that by a touch upon the shoulder, they give a man such an ill habit of body, that he can never come abroad afterwards." I imagine that by the seventh son is meant the seventh son of a seventh son. C. H. COOPER. Cambridge, Feb. 4. 1851. P.S. Since the above was written, I have observed the following notice of the work of Laurentius in Southey's _Common Place Book_, 4th Series, 478. (apparently from a bookseller's catalogue): "Laurentius (And.) De Mirabili Strumas Sanandi VI. Solis Galliae Regibus Christianissimis divinitas concessa, (_fine copy_,) 12s. Paris, 1609. "This copy possesses the large folded engraving of Henry IV., assisted by his courtiers in the ceremony of curing the king's evil." [Footnote 18: _Dd._ 2. 41. fo. 38 b.] [Footnote 19: Fuller, _Church History_, edit. 1837, i. 228.] [Footnote 20: Danett's Translation. edit. 1614, p. 203.] [Footnote 21: Monstrelet edit. 1845, ii. 471.] [Footnote 22: Ibid. 476.] [Footnote 23: Fuller, _Church History_, edit. 1837, i. 227.] [Footnote 24: Cavendish, _Life of Wolsey_, edit. Singer, 1825, vol. i. p. 104.] [Footnote 25: Fuller, _Church History_, edit. 1837, i. pp. 227, 228.] [Footnote 26: _New Monthly Magazine_, vol. liii. p. 160.] * * * * * Replies to Minor Queries. _Forged Papal Bulls_ (Vol. ii., p. 491.).--In your Number, 20th Dec., J. E. inquires where is the instrument for counterfeiting the seal of the Pope's Bulls, which was dredged up from the ruins of old London Bridge. It is in my possession, and your correspondent will find an account of it, with woodcuts of the instrument itself and the seal, in the _Proceedings of the Archaeological Association_, 11th Feb. 1846. GEO. R. CORNER. Eltham. _Obeism._--As your correspondent T. H. (Vol. iii., p. 59.) desires "any information" on the subject of _Obeism_, in the absence of more and better, I offer my mite: that in the early part of this century it was very common among the slave-population in the West Indies, especially on the remoter estates--of course of African origin--not as either a "religion" or a "rite," but rather as a superstition; a power claimed by its professors, and assented to by the _patients_, of causing good or evil to, or averting it from them; which was of course always for a "consideration" of some sort, to the profit, whether honorary, pecuniary, or other, of the dispenser. It is by the pretended influence of certain spells, charms, ceremonies, amulets worn, or other such incantations, as practised with more or less diversity by the adepts, the magicians and conjurers, the "false prophets" of all ages and countries. {150}