“If any change should take place, which I confess I do not expect, but which, in a country of personal government and _pronunciamentos_, is possible to-morrow, I think the new administration will find that with the best intentions in the world a country which has been misgoverned for three centuries is not to be reformed in a day. At the same time, I believe Spain to be making rapid advances toward the conviction that a reform is imperative, and can only be accomplished by the good-will and, above all, the good sense of the entire nation. There are strong prejudices and rooted traditions to be overcome, but with time and patience I believe that Spain will accomplish the establishment of free institutions under whatever form of government.” In the course of Lowell’s incumbency, General Grant visited Spain on his journey round the world, and the embassy, of course, was busy in its attention to the great American. Lowell’s despatch to his government is a model of orderly, dignified statement of the incidents attending Grant’s visit, without the least of that free, personal note which characterizes so many of Lowell’s despatches. His letters home on the same event naturally are more gossipy, but they express well his admiration of Grant’s qualities. In the spring of 1879 Lowell seems to have been in some uncertainty about his continued stay. There had been some talk of transferring him to Berlin, which he did not desire, but the President emphatically declared his wish that Lowell should remain at Madrid. He longed to be at home, yet since he had become adjusted to the place, he wished to secure the advantage and increase his acquaintance with Spain and the character of the Spanish. He was alert and ready now to make more confident notes regarding the people among whom he was living. In speaking of a friend who had been most kind to them, and who had a quartering of English race in her, he says:--