Brewer's: Dawson

(Bully). A noted London sharper, who swaggered and led a most abandoned life about Blackfriars, in the reign of Charles II. ( See Jemmy Dawson.)

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

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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