390 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2=dS. X. Nov. 17. '60. 



RIDE V. DRIVE. 

 (2°*'S.x. 17.59. 175.) 



As this matter seems to be concluded, I may 

 be permitted to express my belief tbat the discus- 

 sion has its foundation in a technical distinction 

 which a certain class finds it convenient to make. 

 This is not the only instance. When a young 

 man, I have been assured that it is absurd to call 

 a pheasant a bird; that partridges are birds, but 

 pheasants are not : and that if I had been in the 

 way of knowing anything about it (i, e. sporting), 

 I should have known better than to call a pheasant 

 a bird. Again, I have been reproved for calling 

 a sheep a beast, and have been told that bullocks 

 are beasts, but sheep are not : and that if I knew 

 any thing about it (i. e. farming stock) I should 

 never make such a mistake. I have heard of a 

 defence of this restriction out of the Bible. A 

 farmer appealed to the prophet Daniel : when 

 Nebuchadnezzar was to become as the " beasts " 

 of the field, he was to eat grass " as oxen " — not 

 " as sheep," you observe. Thirdly, savans have 

 assured me that a whale is not a fish, but a mam- 

 mal, and that nobody who knows anything about 

 the matter (i. e. zoological classification) would 

 give the same name to a whale and a salmon. 

 But, on the other hand, though my own experi- 

 ence does not speak in this case, I am told that 

 the whaler will not call anything by the name of 

 Jish except whales, or at least sea animals large 

 enough to be harpooned. Of course I was never 

 induced to draw any conclusion from these several 

 reproofs except this, that pedantry is not the pe- 

 culiar possession of scholars. And being thus 

 put upon observing the point, I soon found that 

 the disposition to impose its own technicalities 

 upon the world as general laws of language is 

 characteristic of every class of mankind. 



Men use their technicalities until the power of 

 understanding common language almost disap- 

 pears. More than thirty years ago, I took a 

 cheque for — to me — a large amount to a London 

 bank, and said to the clerk, " I will draw £ — now, 

 and leave the rest here." The poor clerk looked 

 quite puzzled: the idea of leaving money at a 

 banker's did not touch his notions of business : 

 but he was clever, and in five seconds he said, " I 

 see what you mean. Sir! you want to open an 

 account." Some months afterwards, I went to 

 pay in more money, and being by this time aware 

 that a banker's clerk might be drawn upon for 

 innocent amusement, I put my request into the 

 most awkward form I could, and said, " Will you 

 take this money and put it with the rest of mine ? " 

 The smile of pity which he gave was nothing be- 

 low hyperseraphic, and he said, "I see, Sir! you 

 want to refresh your credit." I want to refresh 

 my sense of the ludicrous, thought I. The ban- 

 ker's clerk was the least irrational of the lot I 



have mentioned : for I was not talking of sporting, 

 nor of stock, nor of zoology, when I shocked 

 three worthy pedants by a bird, a beast, and a 

 fish ; but I did intrude myself into the sanctuary 

 of business with my exoteric phrases, and there 

 only, if anywhere, was in the wrong. 



The words ride and drive are, both of them, 

 sometimes active, sometimes neuter : but the 

 neuter sense of drive is almost modern. How 

 many of our common words connected with riding 

 are modern, as now used ? Can any one give me 

 an instance of the word carriage, as old as the 

 time of Gibbon, in its now common sense of that 

 kind of vehicle which those who are rich enough 

 keep for the conveyance of their own persons ? A 

 cart is not now a carriage ; but it was, I find, in 

 the time of Gibbon. When this question has been 

 discussed, I will mention an equivocal phrase 

 which first drew my attention to the word. 



In the active sense, a person may ride a horse, 

 a camel, an elephant, a hobby, a gate-post, or, as 

 was. done by the Yorkshire squire, an alligator: 

 but he cannot ride a cart or a carriage. In the 

 active sense, any person drives who rules the 

 animal by whip or reins, even though he do not 

 ride at all. 



" He who by the plough would thrive, 

 Himself must either hold or drive." 



This does not mean that he rides on the plough. 

 Addison, if a proverb be too vulgar, has a me- 

 taphor on both words in the famous simile of the 

 Angel. 



" Calm and serene he drives the furious blast, 

 And, pleas'd tli' Almighty's orders to perform. 

 Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm." 



This of course does not mean that the whirlwind 

 was pulled along by a blast : but that the Angel 

 rode in the blast which he drove, or propelled. 



Among persons who have the power of riding 

 or driving, as they please, it is natural enough to 

 make the distinction for which your correspondent 

 contends : and I have noticed that they often do 

 so. In such cases the use of language is derived 

 almost entirely fi'om the practice of those who, 

 if the notion of riding be rejected, will actually 

 drive. Perhaps this is the meaning of the asser- 

 tion that the riding in a carriage is rejected by 

 persons of good " social position : " and this is 

 confirmed by the general notion that there is a 

 kind of respectability which begins with a gig, 

 which gives obviously the lowest sort of option 

 between riding and driving which can be ad- 

 mitted. For though, to judge by the plates in 

 Punch, the costermonger does sometimes ride his 

 donkey to Epsom, and sometimes prefer the ve- 

 hicle, yet his general notions of English must put 

 him out of the question on the present occasion. 

 I consider the usage of that kind of " social posi- 

 tion " to which probably your correspondent re- 

 fers, to be a technicality, perfectly similar to that 



