Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/15

Rh The choice of Queen Victoria's last day of life as the chronological limit of the Supplement was warmly approved by Mr. George Smith, the projector and proprietor of the Dictionary. But, unhappily, while the supplementary volumes were still in preparation, the undertaking sustained the irreparable loss of his death (6 April 1901). In accordance with a generally expressed wish the Editor has prefixed a memoir of Mr. Smith to the first volume of the Supplement; but, in order to observe faithfully the chronological limit which was fixed in consultation with Mr. Smith, he has given it a prefatory position which is independent of the body of the work.

A portrait of Mr. Smith, to whose initiative and munificence the whole work is due, forms the frontispiece to the first volume of the Supplement: it is reproduced from a painting by Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A., which was executed in 1876.

Much information has been derived by writers of supplementary articles from private sources. The readiness with which assistance of this kind has been rendered can hardly be acknowledged too warmly. The principle of the Dictionary requires that the memoirs should be mainly confined to a record of fact, should preserve a strictly judicial tone, and should eschew sentiment. The point of view from which the