_Utterance; or, Private Voices to the Public Heart. A Collection of Home Poems. By Caroline A. Briggs. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._ Our first impression of this volume we received from its title, and that impression was, of course, unfavorable, as the title certainly smacks of affectation. But it requires but a slight examination of the book to dissipate such a prejudice. It is a thoroughly genuine expression of a sensitive, thoughtful, artless, affectionate, and fanciful nature, and readily wins its way into the reader’s esteem. Even those passages which evince a sort of innocent ignorance of the conventions of society and letters, have a _naïveté_ which charms while it amuses. The volume is a collection of short poems, ranged under the general titles of Voices of Affection, Voices of Grief, Voices of Cheer, Sacred Voices, and Voices of the Way, and one powerful Voice for the Poor, written in a measure whose movement has something of the fitful swiftness of the cold, wild wind, whose cruelty it deprecates. The following lines convey a vivid picture of desolation; the verse itself seeming to shudder in sympathy with the objects it holds up to pity: Oh, the Poor! The poor and old, On the moor And on the wold— How desolate they are to-night and cold! —I peeped into the broken panes, Where the snow, and sleet, and rains Of many a weary year have stolen, Till the sashes are smeared, and soaked and swollen. Little children with tangled hair, And lips awry and feet half bare, Huddled around the smouldering fire, Like beasts half crouching in their lair; While each, the while, by stealth drew nigher, _Covetous of the other’s share._ Oh! ’twas a pitiful sight to see! And mothers too were there, With infants shivering on their knee, Or closer held with a mother’s care, Or laid to rest with a hurried prayer, A moan, half hope and half despair, A muttered, “Pitiless Storm, forbear!”