DAVY, the varlet of Justice Shallow, who so identifies himself with his master that he considers himself half host half varlet.  Thus when he seats Bardolph and Page at table, he tells them they must take “his” good will for their assurance of welcome.—­Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV. (1598).

DAW (Sir David), a rich, dunder-headed baronet of Monmouthshire, without wit, words, or worth, but believing himself somebody, and fancying himself a sharp fellow, because his servants laugh at his good sayings, and his mother calls him a wag.  Sir David pays his suit to Miss [Emily] Tempest; but as the affections of the young lady are fixed on Henry Woodville, the baron goes to the wall.—­Cumberland, The Wheel of Fortune (1779).

Daw (Marjorie) Edward Delaney, writing to another young fellow, John Flemming, confined in town in August by a broken leg, interests him in a charming girl, Marjorie Daw by name, whom he has met in his (Delaney’s) summering-place.  His description of her ways, sayings and looks so works upon the imagination of the invalid that he falls madly in love with her—­without sight.  As soon as he can travel he rushes madly down to “The Pines” where his friend is staying, and finds instead of Delaney a letter: 

...  “I tried to make a little romance to interest you, something soothing and idyllic, and by Jove!  I’ve done it only too well ...  I fly from the wrath to come—­when you arrive!  For, O, dear Jack, there isn’t any colonial mansion on the other side of the road, there isn’t any piazza, there isn’t any hammock,—­there isn’t any Marjorie Daw!”

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Marjorie Daw (1873).

DAWFYD, “the one-eyed” freebooter chief.—­Sir W. Scott, The
Betrothed (time, Henry II.).

DAWKINS (Jack), known by the sobriquet of the “Artful Dodger.”  He is one of Fagin’s tools.  Jack Dawkins is a young scamp of unmitigated villainy, and full of artifices, but of a cheery, buoyant temper.—­C.  Dickens, Oliver Twist, viii. (1837).

DAWSON (Bully), a London sharper, bully, and debauchee of the seventeenth century.—­See Spectator, No. 2.

Bully Dawson kicked by half the town, and half the town kicked by Bully Dawson.—­Charles Lamb.

Dawson (Jemmy). Captain James Dawson was one of the eight officers belonging to the Manchester volunteers in the service of Charles Edward, the young pretender.  He was a very amiable young man, engaged to a young lady of family and fortune, who went in her carriage to witness his execution for treason.  When the body was drawn, i.e. embowelled, and the heart thrown into the fire, she exclaimed, “James Dawson!” and expired.  Shenstone has made this the subject of a tragic ballad.

  Young Dawson was a gallant youth,
  A brighter never trod the plain;
  And well he loved one charming maid,
  And dearly was he loved again.