A naval surgeon who retired to Dumfries and practised as
a doctor. There, he also became a partner in a small cotton-mill, the power for
which was provided by an ox on a treadmill.
Burns wrote to
him from Isle in October 1788: 'As my symptoms are continuing milder, 1 have
not waited on you; but my liquid drug has failed. You will please send me by my
servant the bearer, a recruit of the G-d D-n. I am still using the unction,
tho', thank Heaven, not extreme unction.'
Another little
domestic note has survived from January 1790: 'The bearer. Janet Nievison, is a
neighbour, and occasionally a laborer of mine. She has got some complaint in
her shoulder, and wants me to find her out a Doctor that will cure her, so 1
have sent her to you. You will remember that she is just in the jaws of
MATRIMONY so for Heaven's sake, get her "hale and sound" as soon as
possible. We are all pretty well; only the little boy's sore mouth has again
inflamed Mrs. B-'s Nipples.'
Burns listed Mundell's
name as one of eleven subscribers, beside himself, for The Bee,
when he wrote to its editor, Dr James Anderson, on 1st November 1790.
Writing to Mrs
Walter Riddell in November 1793, the poet made a reference to Mundell's Mill:
'There is a species of the Human genus that I call the Gin-horse Class: what
enviable dogs they are! Round and round, and round they go - Mundell's ox that
drives his cotton-mill, their exact prototype-without an idea or wish beyond
their circle; fat, sleek, stupid, patient, quiet and contented: while here I
sit, altogether Novemberish, a damn'd melange of Fretfulness and melancholy;
not enough of the one to rouse me to passion, nor of the other to repose me in
torpor; my soul flouncing and fluttering round her tenement, like a wild Finch
caught amid the horrors of winter and newly thrust into a cage.'
http://www.robertburns.org/encyclopedia/MundellDrJames.662.shtml
Prepared by Bob Dalrymple, PO Box 122, Dapto, NSW Australia 2350
eMail: bob@relativelyyours.com