Under the pressure of these arguments, in those States where this system had been adopted the subject was reconsidered. The discussion was affected materially by the opinions of two remarkable men,--William Roscoe, and Lafayette. The former is cherished as the elegant historian of Lorenzo de' Medici and Leo X.; though, perhaps, he should be more justly dear for those labors which crowned the close of his life, in the fields of humanity. Lafayette--on his visit, in 1825, to the country which had been the scene of his youthful devotion--was induced, by a letter from Roscoe, to interest himself in Prison Discipline. He did not surrender himself merely to the blandishments of that unparalleled triumph,--a more than royal progress, forming one of the most touching incidents in history,--when in advanced years he received the gratitude of the giant republic whose feeble infancy he had helped to cradle and protect. From his correspondence it appears that he strove, by conversation in Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and particularly in Pennsylvania, to influence public opinion on the subject of Prisons, and most especially against the system of _solitary confinement_, which he justly likened to the Bastile. His own opinions, and those of Roscoe, were widely circulated, and were quoted in official documents. Their precise influence it is impossible to calculate. The system so abhorrent to our feelings, after brief experiment, was discarded in those States where it had been in operation; and in New York, that of Auburn, consisting of solitude by night with labor in common by day, was confirmed, to the great joy of Roscoe, who feared that it might yield to that of absolute solitude, which had been tried there in 1822.