in this country declared in favour of small feet, and the prejudice of the people having gone with it, the feet of all ladies of decent rank in society are cramped in early life, by being placed in so straight a confinement, that their growth is retarded, and they are not more than three or four inches in length from the toe to the heel. By the smallness of the foot the rank or high breeding of the lady is decided on, and the utmost torment is endured by the girls in early life to ensure themselves this distinction in rank; the lower classes of females not being allowed to torture themselves in the same manner. The Chinese poets frequently indulge in panegyrics on the beauty of these crippled members of the body, and none of their heroines are considered perfect without excessively small feet, when they are affectionately termed by them "the little golden lilies." It is needless to say that the tortures of early youth are succeeded by a crippled maturity, a Chinese lady of high birth being scarcely able to walk without assistance. A specimen of such a foot and shoe is given in plate 3, fig. 11. These shoes are generally made of silk and

embroidered in the most beautiful manner with flowers and ornaments, in coloured silk and threads of gold and silver. A piece of stout silk is generally attached to the heel for the convenience of pulling up the shoe.

Having bestowed some attention on ancient Egypt, we may briefly allude to the shoes of modern times, as given in Lane's work devoted to the history of the manners and customs of the modern Egyptians. They, like the Persian ones, have an up-turned toe, and may with equal ease be drawn on and thrown off. Yet a shoe is also worn with a high instep and high in the heel, which will be best understood by the first figure in the accompanying cut.

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 3, fig. 12. This fashion spread in Europe in the early part of the seventeenth century, and it is alluded to by Hamlet, in Act 2, 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 would appear 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) amongst 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 colours; some with white, some red,