throughout the year, cannot fail to have its effect upon the mind, and to act as a drawback upon the desire of knowledge, and literary distinction. I understand that female education begins to improve; and that besides embroidery and music, a little history and geography are now taught in the schools, but not in the convents; so that the highest classes, who are mostly educated in the convents, are worse educated than the middle classes. While in Madrid, I had the pleasure of being conducted to a girl’s Lancastrian school by its directress, Donna Hurtado de Mendoza, a lady every way worthy of the trust. During the time of the constitution, there were also two Lancastrian schools for boys; but these were suppressed upon the return of the king, who was prevailed upon, however, to allow the school for girls to continue. In the Lancastrian school there are at present 163 pupils, and the system pursued is precisely similar to that followed in England; part of three days every week is dedicated to instruction in the tenets of the Roman Catholic faith. There is one fact I had nearly forgotten to mention,--a fact somewhat opposed to the narrow policy of the government in its hostility to the progress of literary knowledge. Eight young men, of promising abilities, were lately sent by the Spanish government to different cities to study the various branches of chemistry, with a liberal allowance from the public purse; and his majesty’s gilder was also dispatched to England to make inquiries as to the manner of gilding buttons, and gilding bronze, with an allowance of 18,000 reals; and with another stipulation as to a farther and much larger sum, to be put at his disposal for the purchase of secrets.