Autograph manuscript (signed with his pseudonym, 'Elia') of the essay, 'The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers: a May day Effusion', [May 1822]

Charles Lamb (1775-1834)
Autograph manuscript (signed with his pseudonym, 'Elia') of the essay, 'The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers: a May day Effusion', [May 1822]
5½ pages, 374 x 240mm, a fair copy with occasional cancellations and emendations, but also including a cancelled draft of the conclusion (1½ pages) on facing pages originally stuck together with wafers; tipped on guards into an album, red morocco gilt by Elizabeth Greenhill. Provenance: George Moffatt MP (1806-1878: according to a note in the album); British Rail Pension Fund – their sale, Sotheby's, 27 September 1988, lot 139.

One of Lamb's celebrated essays written under the pseudonym 'Elia'.

I like to meet a sweep – understand me – not a grown sweeper – old chimney-sweepers are by no means attractive – but one of those tender novices, blooming through their first nigritude, the maternal washings not quite effaced from the cheek – such as come forth with the dawn, or somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes sounding like the peep peep of a young sparrow; or liker to the matin lark should I pronounce them, in their aerial ascents not seldom anticipating the sun-rise?

I have a kindly yearning towards these dim specks – poor blots – innocent blacknesses ... these almost clergy imps, who sport their cloth without assumption; and from their little pulpits (the tops of chimneys), in the nipping air of a December morning, preach a lesson of patience to mankind.

'In 1820 Lamb began writing essays under the pseudonym Elia for John Scott's London Magazine. Elia was, to those who knew him, recognizably Lamb himself, and he drew freely on his memories and his own correspondence for the essays, but Elia was somewhat more unworldly, whimsical, and elegiac than his author; and the contrivance of the dramatic persona released an easy eloquence and emotional fluency seldom seen in Lamb's previous writings. Over the next few years Lamb wrote most of the essays for which he is best remembered, collected as Elia (1823) and The Last Essays of Elia (1833)' (ODNB). The conclusion of the essay is present both in its final form and in an extensive cancelled draft: the passage is a recollection of the feasts for chimney-sweeps thrown at Smithfields by Lamb's schoolfriend James White, who had died only two years previously, and the concluding words are a melancholy tribute to White: 'James White is extinct, and with him these suppers have long ceased. He carried away with him half the fun of the world when he died – of my world at least'.