We "panned
out," the other day, a phrase which gave us great delight, and which
illustrated a fact in New England history worth noting. We were puzzling
over the word "socdollager," which Bartlett, we think, defines as
"Anything very large and striking,"--_Anglice_, a "whopper,"--"also a
peculiar fish-hook." The word first occurs in print, we believe, in Mr.
Cooper's "Home as Found," applied to a patriarch among the white bass of
Otsego Lake, which could never be captured. We assumed at once that
there was a latent reason for the term, and all at once it flashed upon
us that it was a rough fisherman's random-shot at the word "doxology."
This, in New England congregations, as all know, was wont to be sung, or
"j'ined in," by the whole assembly, and given with particular emphasis,
both because its words were familiar to all without book, and because it
served instead of the chanted creed of their Anglican forefathers. The
last thing, after which nothing could properly follow, the most
important and most conspicuous of all, it represented to our Yankee
Walton the crowning hope of his life,--the big bass, after taking which
he might put hook-and-line on the shelf.
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