The Turkish ladies of the sixteenth century, and very probably much earlier, wore a very high shoe known in Europe by the name of a “chopine.” In the voyages and travels of N. de Nicholay Dauphinoys, Seigneur D’Arfreville, valet de chambre and geographer to the king of France, printed at Lyons, 1568, one of the ladies of the grand seigneur’s seraglio, is represented in a pair of chopines, of which we copy one in plate III., fig. 12. This fashion spread in Europe in the early part of the seventeenth century, and it is alluded to by Hamlet, in act ii., scene 2, when he exclaims, “Your ladyship is nearer heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine,” by which it appears that something of the kind was known in England, where it may have been introduced from Venice, as the ladies there wore them of the most exaggerated size. Coryat, in his “Crudities,” 1611, says; “There is one thing used of the Venetian women, and some others dwelling in the cities and towns subject to signiory of Venice, that is not to be observed (I think) among any other women in Christendom”--the reader must remember that it was new to Coryat, but a common fashion in the East--“which is so common in Venice that no woman whatsoever goeth without it, either in her house or abroad--a thing made of wood and covered with leather of sundry colors; some with white, some red, some yellow. It is called a _chapiney_, which they never wear under their shoes. Many of these are curious painted; some of them I have also seen fairly gilt; so uncomely a thing, in my opinion, that it is a pity this foolish custom is not clean banished and exterminated out of the city. There [Illustration] are many of these chapineys of a great height even half a yard high, which maketh many of their women, that are very short, seem much taller than the tallest women we have in England. Also, I have heard it observed among them, that by how much the nobler a woman is, by so much the higher are her chapineys. All their gentlewomen, and most of their wives and widows that are of any wealth, are assisted and supported either by men or women, when they walk abroad, to the end they might not fall. They are borne up most commonly by the left arm; otherwise they might quickly take a fall.” In Douce’s Illustrations of Shakspere, a woodcut of such a chapiney, or chopine, is given, which is here copied; and it is an excellent example of the thing, showing the decoration which was at times bestowed on it.