Introductory note on Thomas Browne (Volume 3, Harvard Classics)

The religion of Thomas Browne - a liberal man in a most intolerant time - was not taken from either Rome or Geneva, but from his own reason. (Volume 3, Harvard Classics)

Browne visited by Evelyn of "Evelyn Diary," Oct. 17, 1671.

Introductory note on Hippocrates (Volume 38, Harvard Classics)

Once physicians treated the sick with a mixture of medicine and charms. In those days medicine was regarded as a dark art like magic, and those practicing it formed guilds to protect themselves. (Volume 38, Harvard Classics)

Introductory note on Amerigo Vespucci (Volume 43, Harvard Classics)

They are a people smooth and clean of body because of continually washing themselves --- they eat all their enemies whom they kill or capture." Amerigo Vespucci thus writes of the New World inhabitants. (Volume 43, Harvard Classics)

Amerigo Vespucci returns from first American voyage, Oct. 15, 1498.

Introductory note on Adam Smith (Volume 10, Harvard Classics)

All colonies are founded to gain territory or treasure. Spain expected spice and gold from Columbus's expedition, but got no spice and little gold. Adam Smith tells the true motive of the colonizing Greeks, Romans, English, and Spaniards. (Volume 10, Harvard Classics)

Introductory note on Marcus Aurelius (Volume 2, Harvard Classics)

A man of virtue, although a pagan, Marcus Aurelius ruled with benevolence and wisdom. Cruel in persecution of Christians as lawbreakers, no trace of this sternness appears in his writings. (Volume 2, Harvard Classics)