42 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 115. 



be very easy for authors to shake off their juvenile 

 productions, while " N. & Q." is in existence: 

 nor need Mr. Macaulay be ashamed of these 

 ballads. They are spirited, and pleasant to read. 



M. 



Ducks and Drakes (Vol. iv., p. 502.). — An 

 extract from Mr. Bellenden Ker's account of the 

 origin and meaning of these words, will answer 

 M. W. B.'s question in the affirmative. 



DUCKS AHD DRAKES. 



" As the boys play by skiinraing a flat stone along 

 the surface of the water ; so as to cause it to make as 

 many bounds or richochets as the skimmer's strength 

 and dexterity can enforce. The superiority, in the 

 play, is decided by the greatest number of times the 

 stone touches and bounds upon the surface, in conse- 

 quence of the way it is slung from the hand of the per- 

 former. D'hach's aen der reyekes, q. e. the hazard 

 [event] is upon the touches; the issue of the game depends 

 upon the number of bounds [separate touchings] made 

 on the surface of the water. When we say, he has 

 made ducks and drakes of his money, it is merely in the 

 sense of, he has thrown it away childishly and hope- 

 lessly ; and the stone is the boy's throw for a childish 

 purpose, and sinks at the end of its career, to be lost in 

 the water." — Essay on the Archmology of our Popular 

 Phrases and Nursery Rhymes, vol. ii. p. 140. 



C. Forbes. 



Temple. 



John Holywood, the Mathematician (Vol. iii.' 

 p. 389.). — I do not observe that any one has 

 replied to the Query of Dr. Rimbault, :is to the 

 birth-place of John Holywood, the Mathematician. 

 I presume he means Johannes a Sacrnbosco, who 

 died in Paris a.d. 1244, and was the author of the 

 treatise De Sphcera and otlier works. In Harris's 

 History of the County of Down: Dublin, 1744., 

 p. 260., a claim to the honour of his birth is made 

 on behalf of the town of Holywooil, about four 

 miles from Belfast, where he is said to liave been 

 a brother of the order of the Franciscans, who had 

 a friary there. Some of the sculptured stones of 

 the building may still be seen in the walls of the 

 ruined church which stands upon its site ; and its 

 lands form part of the estate of Lord Dufferin and 

 Clandeboy. J. Emerson Tennent. 



London. 



Objective and Subjective (Vol. v., p. 11.) — 

 From the tone of X.'s inquiry into the meaning 

 of this antithesis, it is tolerably jilain that no an- 

 swer will make him confess that it is intelligible ; 

 yet it was familiar in the best times of our philo- 

 sophical literature, and the words, according to 

 this, their philosophical opposition, occur in 

 Johnson's Dictionary. I think it is desirable to 

 avoid this phraseology, but the meaning of it may 

 be made clear enough to any one who wishes to 

 understand it. The object on which man employs 

 his senses or his thoughts, are distinct enougli 



from the man himself, the subject in which the 

 senses and the thoughts exist. Several years ago 

 an Edinburgh Reviewer complained that Germans, 

 and Germanized Englishmen, were beginning to 

 use objective and subjective for external and internal. 

 This is a sort of rough approximation to the 

 meaning of the terms. But perhaps the distinction 

 is better illustrated by examples. We call Homer 

 an objective, Lucan a subjective, poet, because the 

 former tells his story about external objects and 

 wants, interposing little which belongs to himself^ 

 Lucan, on the other hand, is perpetually intro- 

 ducing reflections arising from the internal cha- 

 racter of his own mind. Objective truth is lan- 

 guage which agrees with the facts, correctness. 

 Subjective truth is language which agrees with 

 the convictions of the speaker, veracity. 



Perhaps X. will allow me to ask in turn, what 

 is " a physical ignoramus," tlie character in which 

 he begs some of your intelligent readers to en- 

 lighten him. 



I have said above that I think this mode of ex- 

 pressing the antithesis better avoided ; I will state 

 why. It puts the man who thinks, and the ob- 

 jects about which he thinks, side by side, as if 

 they were .alike and co-ordinate. It implies the 

 view of some one wlio can look at both of J,hem ; 

 whereas, the thing to be implied is the opposition 

 between being looked at and looking. Hence sub- 

 jective is a bad word ; a man is not, in ordinary 

 language, the subject of his own senses or of his 

 own thoughts, merely because they are in him. 

 The antithesis would be better expressed in many 

 cases, by the words objective and mental, or ob- 

 jective and cogitative. But different words would 

 be eligible in different cases. W. W. 



Plant in Texas (Vol. iv., pp. 208. .332.).— Jn 

 turning over some papers I found the following 

 paragraph : 



" Major Alvord has discovered a singular plant of 

 the Western Prairies, said to possess tlte peculiarity of 

 pointing north and south, and to which he has given 

 the name of Silphium Laciniutum. No trace of iron 

 has been discovered in the plant ; but, as it is full of 

 resinous matter. Major Alvord suggests that its po- 

 larity may be due to electric currents." 



John C. WhistaiR' 



Lord Say and Printirig (Vol. iv., p. 344.). — In 

 Mil man's edition of Gibboris Autobiography, there 

 occurs a passage respecting his ancestor, Lord 

 Treasurer Say," from which it appears that the 

 great historian doubted the accuracy of Shaks- 

 peare's allusion (which he quotes). I have not 

 the book with me, or 1 would refer Mr. Frazer 

 to tlie page. I think Gibbon would not have 

 rested content with a mere assertion of his opinion, 

 if a fact so creditable to his ancestor's under- 

 standing were capable of proof. Nic.s:ensis, 



