=1. 2. 1 ff. I, they doe, now=, etc. ‘Compare this exquisite piece of sense, satire, and sound philosophy in 1616 with Sir M. Hale’s speech from the bench in a trial of a witch many years afterwards.’--Coleridge, _Notes_, p. 280. =1. 2. 1 Bretnor.= An almanac maker (fl. 1607-1618). A list of his works, compiled from the catalogue of the British Museum, is given in the _DNB_. He is mentioned twice by Middleton: This farmer will not cast his seed i’ the ground Before he look in Bretnor. --_Inner-Temple Masque_, _Wks._ 7. 211. ‘_Chough._ I’ll not be married to-day, Trimtram: hast e’er an almanac about thee? this is the nineteenth of August, look what day of the month ’tis. _Trim._ ’Tis tenty-nine indeed, sir. [_Looks in almanac._ _Chough._ What’s the word? What says Bretnor? _Trim._ The word is, sir, _There’s a hole in her coat_.’ --Middleton, _A Fair Quarrel_, _Wks._ 4. 263. Fleay identifies him with Norbret, one of the astrologers in Beaumont and Fletcher’s _Rollo, Duke of Normandy_. =1. 2. 2 Gresham.= A pretended astrologer, contemporary with Forman, and said to be one of the associates of the infamous Countess of Essex and Mrs. Turner in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. Arthur Wilson mentions him in _The Life of James I._, p. 70: ‘Mrs. _Turner_, the Mistris of the _Work_, had lost both her supporters. _Forman_, her first prop, drop’t away suddenly by death; and _Gresham_ another rotten _Engin_ (that succeded him) did not hold long: She must now bear up all her self.’ He is mentioned twice in Spark’s _Narrative History of King James_, Somer’s _Tracts_ 2. 275: ‘Dr. Forman being dead, Mrs. Turner wanted one to assist her; whereupon, at the countesses coming to London, one Gresham was nominated to be entertained in this businesse, and, in processe of time, was wholly interested in it; this man was had in suspition to have had a hand in the Gunpowder plot, he wrote so near it in his almanack; but, without all question, he was a very skilful man in the mathematicks, and, in his latter time, in witchcraft, as was suspected, and therefore the fitter to bee imployed in those practises, which, as they were devilish, so the devil had a hand in them.’ _Ibid._ 287: ‘Now Gresham growing into years, having spent much time in many foule practises to accomplish those things at this time, gathers all his babies together, _viz._ pictures in lead, in wax, in plates of gold, of naked men and women with crosses, crucifixes, and other implements, wrapping them all up together in a scarfe, crossed every letter in the sacred word Trinity, crossed these things very holily delivered into the hands of one Weston to bee hid in the earth that no man might find them, and so in Thames-street having finished his evill times he died, leaving behind him a man and a maid, one hanged for a witch, and the other for a thief very shortly after.’