The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

We have now concluded the publication of the Old Bostonian's Remarks on the Young Bostonian's Letters; which, for several weeks past, have occupied a considerable portion of our miscellaneous department. Without wishing to appear the champions of the Young Bostonian, we frankly acknowledge our conviction that the remarks of his adversary have failed to rob his letters of the praise which justly belongs to them. They were unquestionably the lighter effusions of a youthful, but more than ordinary, mind; which, when matured by age and disciplined by culture, might be capable of higher efforts. The Old Bostonian, in his zeal to detect and expose defects, has at times appeared ill-natured and uncandid—more solicitous to establish his prowess as a critick and his reputation as a writer than to satisfy the reasonable claims of justice, or regard the susceptible feelings of youth. In short, he authorizes the publick to form a more favourable estimate of his head than his heart.

The parents of the Young Bostonian perhaps merited the "grave rebuke" of this experienced censor; or, in the indulgence of parental partiality and, probably, for the gratification of parental vanity, they injudiciously published the letters of their son, which certainly had no especial claim to publick notice. They should have reflected on the danger of unduly encouraging precocious talents, in young men, who too often relapse into the torpor of mental inexertion, when they catch, prematurely, "the fleeting echoes of renown."