executeQuery

I'm executing an SQL query using the following code:

Connection connection =
DriverManager.getConnection(url,user,password);
Statement statement = connection.createStatement();
ResultSet resultSet = statement.executeQuery("SELECT * FROM
someTable");

This works except that the third statement doesn't return until the query is
complete. This contrasts with the behavior of other databases (such as
Informix) where the query returns immediately, thus allowing the result set
metadata to be analyzed before the result set is.
Is there any way to force the executeQuery to return immediately?
If not, is there some way to limit the results of the query to the first n
rows, where n is some reasonable number?