ON A LAZY IDLE BOY.
I had occasion to pass a week in the autumn in the little old town of Coire or Chur, in the Grisons, where lies buried that very ancient British king, saint, and martyr, Lucius, who founded the Church of St.Peter, on Cornhill.Few people note the church now-a-days, and fewer ever heard of the saint.In the cathedral at Chur, his statue appears surrounded by other sainted persons of his family.With tight red breeches, a Roman habit, a curly brown beard, and a neat little gilt crown and sceptre, he stands, a very comely and cheerful image: and, from what I may call his peculiar position with regard to Cornhill, I beheld this figure of St.Lucius with more interest than I should have bestowed upon personages who, hierarchically, are, I dare say, his superiors.
Stow quotes the inscription, still extant, from the table fast chained in St.Peter's Church, Cornhill; and says, "he was after some chronicle buried at London, and after some chronicle buried at Glowcester"--but, oh! these incorrect chroniclers! when Alban Butler, in the "Lives of the Saints," v.xii., and Murray's "Handbook," and the Sacristan at Chur, all say Lucius was killed there, and I saw his tomb with my own eyes!
The pretty little city stands, so to speak, at the end of the world--of the world of to-day, the world of rapid motion, and rushing railways, and the commerce and intercourse of men.From the northern gate, the iron road stretches away to Zurich, to Basle, to Paris, to home.From the old southern barriers, before which a little river rushes, and around which stretch the crumbling battlements of the ancient town, the road bears the slow diligence or lagging vetturino by the shallow Rhine, through the awful gorges of the Via Mala, and presently over the Splugen to the shores of Como.
I have seldom seen a place more quaint, pretty, calm, and pastoral, than this remote little Chur.What need have the inhabitants for walls and ramparts, except to build summer-houses, to trail vines, and hang clothes to dry on them? No enemies approach the great mouldering gates: only at morn and even the cows come lowing past them, the village maidens chatter merrily round the fountains, and babble like the ever-voluble stream that flows under the old walls.