borne by each. The necessity of such a concession on the part of the clergy, in a town where the great revenues of the Cathedral Chapter, and the personal influence of the Bishop unite in maintaining their power over the minds of the lower orders, may be regarded as no slight proof of the progress which Mexico has made towards emancipation from that thraldom, in which the Inquisition, and the splendour of the ecclesiastical establishments, combined to hold the country. Don Antonio Perez, the present Bishop of La Puebla, possesses all the qualities best calculated to render him the prop and support, in his own Diocese, of that system, of which he is now almost the sole representative in New Spain. With the most polished manners, and the most dignified address, he has considerable oratorical powers; and he adds to these merits that of dispensing with great liberality the large revenues of his See. He is a Creole too, (the first ever raised by the Court of Madrid to the episcopal dignity;) and all these advantages have given him an influence, such as no Spaniard could have hoped to exercise. In whatever country his lot had been cast, he must have been a distinguished man, for he possesses that power of accommodating himself to circumstances, which is, perhaps, the surest road to preferment, when accompanied by sufficient penetration to seize the happy moment for a change. In Spain he was an active member of the Cortes of Cadiz; and yet,
