Walter Raleigh impossible for Raleigh to have discovered the potato in the places he visited. Due to Raleigh's role in the popularisation of smoking, John Lennon humorously referred to him as "such a stupid get" in the song "I'm So Tired" on the "White Album" "The Beatles" (1968). Various colourful stories are told about him, such as laying his cloak over a puddle for the Queen, but they are probably apocryphal. Walter Raleigh Sir Walter Raleigh (; (or 1554)29 October 1618), also spelled Ralegh, was an English landed gentleman, writer, poet, soldier, politician, courtier, spy and explorer. He was cousin to Sir
Sir Walter Raleigh (essay) all three of them to construct the version he prepared. He hinted that there may have been an additional fourth draft that had yet to surface. The notes to the Moldenhauer, Moser & Kern version say that Metcalf "misread the holograph at several points, omitted occasional words and phrases, ignored some pencil cancellations, and amplified Thoreau's text with passages from the working manuscripts and from the Raleigh Works. None of these changes carry authority." The essay praises Sir Walter Raleigh as a flawed but heroic figure, who failed to use his heroic character to heroic ends. Thoreau concludes by begging