2-* s. VI. 150., Nov. 13. '68.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 



399 



Fr. word remyvage, a pilgrimage, together with 

 the several Romance terms, romovage, romavatge, 

 romavia, all signifying a pilgrimage, and romeu, 

 romoneou, a pilgrim, specially to Rome. 



But, at any rate, " no corresponding word " ex- 

 ists in Italian. — Let us see. 



Ital. romeo, a pilgrim ; romeaggio, a pilgrimage. 



In old Italian, as was long ago laid down by 

 Dante, romeo was, strictly, a pilgrim to Rome, 

 pellegrino a pilgrim to Compostella, palmie7-e a 

 pilgrim beyond sea (to the East, whence he brought 

 home palms). Subsequently, the three terms be- 

 came convertible. It is difficult to understand 

 with what aim your correspondent asserts that, in 

 Italian, pellegrino is the ordinary word for pilgrim. 

 The question is, what were the words used for- 

 merly ? Was not romeo used ? Of romeo, as 

 employed by Italian writers in the sense of a pil- 

 grim, the Vocab. degli Accad. delta Crusca gives 

 six instances, and of pellegrino in that sense only 

 two. 



Romeo, then, has long been an established word 

 in Italian, like romero in Spanish, signifying a pil- 

 grim, specially a pilgrim to Rome; — though Me. 

 PiCTON may think there is no such " correspond- 

 ing " word in the Italian language. It corresponds 

 to romero in Spanish, and to romeiro in Portu- 

 guese. It corresponds to roumienx in old French, 

 and to romens in mediaeval Latin. Romero, in 

 particular, is also applied, as we have seen, in a 

 more extended sense, to a reamer or rambler. 

 Through romero, then, and the cognate terms 

 romeiro, roumieux, romeo, &c., we may fairly 

 trace our English "roam" and "roamer" to Roma. 



It has also been proposed in " N. & Q." (2""^ S. 

 vi. 269.) to derive " saunterer " from the Spanish 

 santero, a person who went about begging for a 

 hermitage or for the Church. Your correspon- 

 dent calls for some evidence of the "connexion." 

 I think the connexion is plain enough. If, how- 

 ever, by connexion he means intermediate and 

 cognate words in the French language, we have 

 them. We have them in "saintir" (se sanctifier, 

 devenir saint), and in the " sainteurs," serfs of a 

 church to which they owed feodal labour, or pay- 

 ment in lieu. It is not to be supposed that these 

 compelled labourers went to their work very 

 briskly ; and therefore some persons may think 

 that the true derivation of saunterer is sainteur. 

 This is possible. But the two words, Fr. sainteur 

 and Sp. santero, are evidently of the same family ; 

 and if we derive roamer from romero, analogy 

 seems to require that we should derive saunterer 

 from santero. 



It is my firm belief that many words have come 

 into our language direct from the Spanish, and not 

 only from the Spanish but from the Italian and 

 Portuguese, from med.-Latin and from the old 

 Romance, without ever having passed to us through 

 the French language at all. How this took place 



— but I have already trespassed too far, and must 

 conclude. Thomas Boys. 



ATTORNET-GENEEAL NOTE. 



(2"'» S. vi. 309. 358.) 

 Genealog0S inquires " whether any repre- 

 sentative of the family of Noye still exists ? " The 

 late Davies Gilbert, Esquire, sometime President 

 of the Royal Society, was descended from Cath- 

 arine Noye, daughter and coheir of Colonel 

 Humphry Noye, the son of the attorney-general, 

 by Hester Sandys, a coheir of the barony of 

 Sandys of the Vine. I believe that the fullest 

 memoirs of Attorney-General Noye, hitherto pub- 

 lished, are those given by Mr. Davies Gilbert him- 

 self in the third volume of his Parochial History 

 of Cornicall, 1838, 8vo. In vol. ii. p. 339. he 

 styles himself the attorney-general's " descendant 

 and heir-at-law." In an earlier History of Corn- 

 wall, that by Polwhele, 4to. 1806, there is a por- 

 trait of the attorney-general, from the original, by 

 Cornelius Jansen, in the possession of Mr. Davies 

 Gilbert, and engraved at his expense. Of the 

 same picture Mr. Davies Gilbert presented a copy 

 to Exeter College, Oxford. See also in Mr. Pol- 

 whele's Works, vol. iv. p. 94., a united pedigree 

 of Noye and Sandys, brought down to Davies 

 Giddy (afterwards Gilbert). John Davies Gil- 

 bert, Esquire, the only son of the President of 

 the Royal Society, died on April 16, 1854, leaving 

 an infant son and heir of the same name, who is 

 the present representative of Attorney-General 

 Noye, as well as eldest coheir of the barony of 

 Sandys of the Vine. Polwhele (iv. 94.) styles the 

 attorney-general Sir William, but that is an 

 error; as shown by his own note in the next page, 

 in which the epitaph at Mawgan is cited, which 

 commemorates " Collonell Humphry Noye, son 

 and heir of William Noye of Carnanton, Esq., 

 Attorney Generall," &c., of which the words son 

 and heir of William Noye are omitted in the copy 

 in " N. & Q.," p. 309. (See the copy in D. Gil- 

 bert's Cornwall, iii. 151.) Lysons, under "Isle- 

 worth," and Aungier, in his History of that parish, 

 have fallen into the same error of terming him 

 Sir William Noye ; but in the register of the 

 chapel of New Brentford his name is thus en- 

 tered : — " Mr. William Noy, the King's at- 

 torney, buried the 11th of Aug. 1634." His 

 residence was called " The Sprotts " at Isleworth, 

 and had previously been occupied by Thomas 

 Viscount Savage. John Gough Nichols. 



LITTLE EASE DUNGEON. 



(2'><' S. vi. 345.) 

 Randle Holme was not the first or the only 

 writer who has described the horrors of the " Little 



