Boswell's behaviour during the Douglas Cause is said to have been decidedly extravagant. His father was heard to say that 'James had taken a tout on a new horn,'[12] and a story got about which, though it may have been false, must have had some relation to the common conception of Boswell, that when he heard that the House of Lords had reversed the decision of the Court of Session, he placed himself at the head of an uproarious mob who broke his father's windows. There are other indications than the Douglas Cause to show that Boswell was anxious to be successful in his legal career. It is not to be thought that he always displayed the energy which he showed at this time. But he clearly took the trouble, on several occasions recorded in the 'Life,' to prepare the best arguments he could to support his case; and if we must suppose that he was as anxious as he represents himself to be that justice should be done, it is still quite evident that he hoped to gain some advantage to himself from the assistance which he solicited and obtained from Johnson, and was glad that the right should triumph, in part no doubt because it was supported by James Boswell. In fact it is probable that Johnson's assistance was of little value. As Boswell says on one occasion, having presented the written arguments of Johnson without success, 'their Lordships in general, though they were pleased to call this, "a well-drawn paper," preferred the former very inferior petition which I had written; thus confirming the truth of an observation made to me by one of their number in a merry mood: "My dear Sir, give yourself no trouble in the composition of the paper you present to us; for, indeed, it is casting pearls before swine."' We shall have to consider when we come to the last years of Boswell's life the various reasons for his failure at the Bar. But one reason may be mentioned here because it is so essential a part of his character that we should do wrong not to have it in mind as we go over the spectacle of his whole life. Boswell, it must be remembered, was called to the Scotch Bar; but the society of the Scotch, and particularly of the Scotch lawyers, was never congenial to him. As early as March 1767 he writes to Temple: 'It must be confessed that our Court of Session is not so favourable to eloquence as the English Courts.' By 1775 he was apparently quite tired of his work; 'On my arrival here [Edinburgh] I had the pleasure to find my wife and two little daughters as well as I could wish; but indeed, my worthy priest, it required some philosophy to bear the change from England to Scotland. The unpleasing tone, the rude familiarity, the barren conversation of those whom I found here, in comparison with what I had left, really hurt my feelings.'