Joseph Felix Nicholas de, a celebrated Spanish naturalist. He was born in 1731, at Barbamias, a village near Barbastro, in the province of Aragon. He discovered an early disposition towards the arts and sciences, which was directed and stimulated by his near relation the celebrated painter Mengs. He entered into the military service at an early age, and in the capacity of officer passed to South America, and resided many years in different parts of the province of Buenos Ayres. Here he indulged his disposition for the study of zoology, and lived many years in some of the most sequestered parts, making collections and drawings of the various animals of that extensive country. The latter, with descriptions, were at length published at Paris in 1801. When he returned from South America, he was employed in the diplomatic department, and appointed ambassador to Pope Clement XII., by which he was brought into contact with Buonaparte, who was then occupied in the conquest of Italy. He became much attached to that conqueror, and obtained the appointment of ambassador to him from the court of Madrid. Amidst the shifting politics of that court, he seems to have been, in his latter years, the frequent victim of its indecision. He was at one time recalled suddenly, then banished to Barcelona, again appointed to the embassy, and again as suddenly deprived of it. These vexations affected him, and are said to have hastened his death. He died in Paris on the 26th of January 1804.

B.

B, the second letter, and first consonant, in all known alphabets, excepting the Ethiopic, where it occupies the ninth place. It is a labial and mute, representing the compression of the lips, and consequently incapable of being uttered or pronounced without the aid of a vowel, or a forcible expiration equivalent in effect to vocality. This letter has a near affinity to the other labials, with which, indeed, it is interchangeable according as the compression of the lips, which it primarily indicates, is modified by simultaneous expiration; and hence, although its ordinary power or effect is intermediate between the smooth and easy sound of P, and the rough aspirations of PH, F, and V, yet, in the articulation of many languages, it is habitually confounded with one or other of the letters of the same class, and, in the same language at different times, is frequently interchanged with its cognate consonants. Thus βοσκω in Greek becomes pasco in Latin; γιλβος, gilvus; βρεμον, fremo; πατερ, pater; αυγον, avgo; φαλαρα, balara; θραυσις, triumphus; and so in many other instances. Again, in Latin, the B of the olden time, and of the inscriptions, passes into V in a subsequent age; while, on the other hand, the P of the antique orthography is commuted into B in that of a more recent date. Hence we have abaves for abatus, ave for ade, vexit for bixit, curvatus for curbatus, and hundreds of other analogous instances in Gruter, Reinesius, Funckius, Gorius, Dempster, Fréret, and Lanzi, not to mention the Monumenti degli Scipioni, and similar works; while Poplius for Publius, Poplicus for Publicus, Poplicola for Publicola, are of frequent occurrence in the inscriptions and other elder monuments of the Latin language. This letter is also sometimes inserted in the middle of compound words for the sake of euphony, and to prevent the hiatus which would otherwise result from the concurrence of vowels, as ambages, ambio, amburo; it is servile in the dative and ablative plural of the third, fourth, and fifth declensions of Latin nouns, and in the praterimperfect and future tenses of the first and second conjugations; and it is interchangeable with P, F, and other letters, both in the composition and conjugation of a number of verbs.—In Hebrew, the name of the second letter, בְּתֵי, beth or bath, indicates the original hieroglyph to have represented a house or temple; whilst an abbreviated form of the figure has been employed to denote the initial sound of the word in the spoken language; a principle, also, upon which the ancient Egyptians appear to have constructed their phonetic alphabet, or used the symbolical characters of their complex system of writing, for representing the constituent sounds of proper names and of legends. A difference, however, will be observed between the two Phoenician forms of this letter; the first of which is that of a house or temple, whilst, in the second, another figure seems to have been combined with the first; from which it is probable that this people, the inventors of alphabetical characters or signs, had originally two hieroglyphs for the letter, and consequently two words by which it was named. This compound hieroglyph seems to have been composed of thebeth or house, and of the head and horns of some animal placed over it, perhaps those of a бык, бык, ox or wild goat; which would explain the assertion of Hesiod, that the second or third letter of the Phoenicians was represented by an ox. At all events the Phoenician, reproduced in the early Greek, has served as the basis of most modern varieties in the languages of the west; and, amidst every change which time, accident, or caprice, has superinduced, it is still easy to detect and distinguish the elementary or primitive form. With regard to the different sounds or powers attached to the letter in modern languages, these have varied within the limits of its natural affinity; the Germans giving it the effect of P, the Spaniards, Gascons, and others, that of V; and the modern Greeks, sometimes that of V, but more frequently sounding it as we do F. The satirical epigrammatist who affirmed that, in Gascony, bibere is the same as vivere, stated a literal truth, in as far at least as the pronunciation of the words is concerned. In abbreviations B stands for Bodio, beatus, Beleno, bene, beneficarius, bernia for verena, biga, bicus for vicus, bixit for vivit, bonum, Brutus, burra, bustum.