The other publication, 'Dorando: A Spanish Tale'[10] affects to be a story about a trial in Spain, but reproduces the characters in the Douglas case. Under this thin veil approbation and criticism are distributed to the two parties, and the cause decided. The publication of 'Dorando,'[11] extracts of which appeared in several of the Scotch newspapers and were held by some of the Scotch judges to be contempt of court, was wholly characteristic of Boswell. Whether or no it would be possible to find in his conduct anything which amounted to a breach of etiquette, it is clear that a publication of this sort might well injure his position at the Bar. It is true that the author's name did not appear, but it was not to be supposed that it would always remain a secret, and the precaution was probably taken with a view to being on the right side rather of the law than of the lawyers. Boswell, with all his wish to win the esteem of men, never understood how easily the opposite is earned and how harshly a tiny cosmos will punish an offence against itself. And when the humorous side of things struck him forcibly he was unable to repress his feelings.
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."'