Sir Walter Raleigh Author:Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau was fascinated by the enduring charm of Sir Walter Raleigh, the adventurous, almost mythical knight of the Elizabethan age. He admired the unswerving loyalty with which Raleigh served his Queen and country, and was well aware of his influence on our own American history. After all, as Charles Kingsley put it, "To this one man... more », under the Providence of Almighty God, the whole United States of America owe their existence." In Sir Walter Raleigh, Thoreau calls upon Americans to use Raleigh as an example upon which to build their own character, and challenges them to eclipse him, saying "We have considered a fair specimen of an Englishman in the sixteenth century; but it behoves us to be fairer specimens of American men in the nineteenth. The gods have given man no constant gift, but the power and liberty to act greatly. How many wait for health and warm weather to be heroic and noble! 'Sit not down,' said Sir Thomas Browne, 'in the popular seats and common level of virtues, but endeavor to make them heroical.'"« less