ut is perform'd with some foul imperfection."

From which it would follow, that Spenser had seen somebody like Mrs.
Conrady.

The spirit of this good lady--her previous _anima_--must have stumbled
upon one of these untoward tabernacles which he speaks of. A more
rebellious commodity of clay for a ground, as the poet calls it, no
gentle mind--and sure hers is one of the gentlest--ever had to deal
with.

Pondering upon her inexplicable visage--inexplicable, we mean, but by
this modification of the theory--we have come to a conclusion that,
if one must be plain, it is better to be plain all over, than, amidst
a tolerable residue of features, to hang out one that shall be
exceptionable. No one can say of Mrs. Conrady's countenance, that it
would be better if she had but a nose. It is impossible to pull her to
pieces in this manner. We have seen the most malicious beauties of her
own sex baffled in the attempt at a selection. The _tout ensemble_
defies particularising. It is too complete--too consistent, as we may
say--to admit of these invidious reservations. It is not as if some
Apelles had picked out here a lip--and there a chin--out of the
collected ugliness of Greece, to frame a model by. It is a symmetrical
whole. We challenge the minutest connoisseur to cavil at any part or
parcel of the countenance in question; to say that this, or that, is
improperly placed. We are convinced that true ugliness, no less than
is affirmed of true beauty, is the result of harmony. Like that too
it reigns without a competitor. No one ever saw Mrs. Conrady, without
pronouncing her to be the plainest woman that he ever met with in the
course of his life. The first time that you are indulged with a sight
of her face, is an era in your existence ever after. You are glad to
have seen it--like Stonehenge. No one can pretend to forget it. No one
ever apologised to her for meeting her in the street on such a day and
not knowing her: the pretext would be too bare. Nobody can mistake her
for another. Nobody can say of her, "I think I have seen that face
somewhere, but I cannot call to mind where." You must remember that in
such a parlour it first struck you--like a bust. You wondered where
the owner of the house had picked it up. You wondered more when it
began to move its lips--so mildly too! No one ever thought of asking
her to sit for her picture. Lockets are for remembrance; and it would
be clearly superfluous to hang an image at your heart