And a most memorable victory it was: upwards of 30,000 Turks are said to have lost their lives in the engagement, and 3,500 were made prisoners. Almost their whole fleet was taken. I quote from Protestant authorities when I say that the Sultan, on the news of the calamity, neither ate, nor drank, nor showed himself, nor saw any one for three days; that it was the greatest blow which the Ottomans had had since Timour's victory over Bajazet, a century and a half before; nay, that it was the turning-point in the Turkish history;[71] and that, though the Sultans have had isolated successes since, yet from that day they undeniably and constantly declined, that they have lost their _prestige_ and their self-confidence, and that the victories gained over them since are but the complements and the reverberations of the overthrow at Lepanto. Such was the catastrophe of this long and anxious drama; the hosts of Turkistan and Tartary had poured down from their wildernesses through ages, to be withstood, and foiled, and reversed by an old man. It was a repetition, though under different circumstances, of the history of Leo and the Hun. In the contrast between the combatants we see the contrast of the histories of good and evil. The Enemy, as the Turks in this battle, rushing forward with the terrible fury of wild beasts; and the Church, ever combating with the energetic perseverance and the heroic obstinacy of St. Pius. FOOTNOTES: [57] Formby's Visit to the East. [58] The three remaining of the thirty are Orchan, Ibrahim, and Abdoul Achmet. [59] Gibbon. [60] Gibbon. [61] Hume's History. [62] Ranke, vol. i [63] Turner's History. [64] Ibid. [65] Gieseler's Text Book. [66] Baronius. [67] Bergeron. [68] Gibbon says twenty years: Sharon Turner gives 1074. [69] Bollandist. Mai. 5. [70] Ranke's Hist. of the Popes. [71] "The battle of Lepanto arrested for ever the danger of Mahometan invasion in the south of Europe."--Alison's Europe, vol. ix. p. 95. "The powers of the Turks and of their European neighbours were now nearly balanced; in the reign of Amurath the Third, who succeeded Selim, the advantages became more evidently in favour of the Christians; and since that time, though the Turks have sometimes enjoyed a transitory success, the real stability of their affairs has constantly declined."--Bell's Geography, vol. ii, part 2. Vid. also Ranke, vol. i., pp. 381-2. It is remarkable that it should be passed over by Professor Creasy in his "Fifteen Decisive Battles." IV. THE PROSPECTS OF THE TURKS. LECTURE VII. _Barbarism and Civilization._ 1.