Sir Walter Raleigh is an essay by Henry David Thoreau that has been reconstructed from notes he wrote for an 1843 lecture and drafts of an article he was preparing for The Dial.
Another version, with significant differences, can be found in Henry D. Thoreau: Early Essays and Miscellanies, edited by Joseph J. Moldenhauer and Edwin Moser, with Alexander C. Kern.
Metcalf writes in his introduction that he knew of three drafts of this essay, and he drew on all three of them to construct the version he prepared.
"Sit not down," said Sir Thomas Browne, "in the popular seats and common level of virtues, but endeavor to make them heroical.
Offer not only peace-offerings, but holocausts, unto God".Sixteen years later, in 1859, Thoreau delivered his lecture A Plea for Captain John Brown (published as an essay in 1860).