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278 on the King's return in 1814, his name was at the head of the Persas, or party, which petitioned his Majesty for the immediate dissolution of that assembly. Raised in 1815 to the Bishopric of La Puebla, he addressed, upon his arrival, a Pastoral to the people of his Diocese, exhorting them to beware of the dangerous and heretical tendency of the Spanish Constitution; and yet, on the second Proclamation of that Constitution, in 1820, he contrived to conciliate, in a second Pastoral, all that he had then said of its defects, with the panegyric which it became expedient to pronounce upon its advantages.

I know few better models of political ingenuity than this curious paper, which Bustamante has given, at length, in his Cuadro Historico. It was headed by the text—"There is a time to speak, and there is a time to be silent," (Eccl. iii. v. 7,) and it must be admitted that in a country still involved in a great political struggle, where caution was consequently necessary in the choice of a subject, and much tact required in the mode of treating it, a happier selection could not easily have been made.

The State of La Puebla is divided into twenty-five Partidos, or districts, containing, in all, according to a Census taken after the great Epidemy in 1825, a population of 584,358 souls; or 681,751, if one sixth be added to the registered amount for unavoidable errors in the returns.

The names of all the Partidos, the situation of