Possible Antedating of Espionage "Mole"

[Robin Hamilton]

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From: Jonathan Lighter

The Bacon cite is authentic. I can remember checking it out twenty or more
years ago.

There is no evidence, however, that "mole" was lexicalized in this sense
before the 20th century. For Bacon it appears merely to have been a
metaphor.

JL
>>

Possibly related to the second half of the second stanza of Henry Vaughan's 
"The World":

Yet digg’d the mole, and lest his ways be found,
       Work’d under ground,
Where he did clutch his prey; but one did see
       That policy;
Churches and altars fed him; perjuries
       Were gnats and flies;
It rain’d about him blood and tears, but he
       Drank them as free.

I think first published in _Silex Scintillans_ (1650).

Robin Hamilton 

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