The facts of the fight of the seventh of October--a Sunday--of the year 1571, are so well-known, that we need merely recall to the memory of our readers the leading features of the contest. Spain, Venice, Genoa, Malta, and the Papal States were represented there, but "the meteor flag of England" was not unfurled in sight of the Turkish, nor were the fleurs-de-lys to be seen on the standards that gaily floated from the mast-heads of the great Christian armada. England, alas! was in the clutches of a wretched woman, and France was on the eve of a St. Bartholomew's Massacre, and for all that France and England cared, at that time, Europe might have become Mahommedan. Don John led the centre of the long line--three miles in length--of galleys, while on his right, Doria the great Genoese admiral, from whose masts waved the cross of St. George; and on the left, the brave Barbarigo, the Venetian, his flank protected by the coast commanded. Against the wind, the sun shooting its bright rays against the ships, the Turkish fleet, in half-moon formation, two hundred and fifty great galleys and many smaller craft, carrying one hundred and twenty thousand men, slowly advanced "in battle's magnificently stern array." The brave Ali Pacha led the van. As the hostile fleets met, the two admirals exchanged shots. At noon, the Christians, among whom was one of the greatest soldiers and one of the ablest authors of that age--Farnese and Cervantes--knelt to receive absolution from their chaplains, and then rose up to fight. In many a quiet village away in the Appenines, or in the Sierras of more distant Spain, the Angelus was ringing, and many a heartfelt prayer was aiding the Christian cause, then a wild cry arose from the Moslem fleet and "from mouth to mouth" of the cannon the "volley'd thunder flew." The combat deepened and became hand to hand. The two admirals ships grappled together in a deadly struggle. Don John, foremost in the fray, was slightly wounded. At a third attempt, Ali Pacha's galley was boarded, captured, himself slain, and the Standard of the Cross replaced the Crescent. Victory! Victory! was the cry from one Christian ship to another. In less than four hours, the Turkish ships were scattered, sunk, or burning, until darkness and storm drove Don John to seek shelter in port, and hid the wreckage with which man had strewn the sea. The Christian loss was eight thousand, the Turkish four or five times greater. Don John hastened to console and comfort his wounded. Did he not, perchance, visit, on his bed of suffering, the immortal Cervantes? After the wounded, he turned to his prisoners, whom he treated with a generosity to which the sixteenth century was little accustomed.