No English lady was ever more skilled and accomplished in domestic culture and economy than was Mrs. Tyler, and she was never so happy as when in the enjoyment of domestic privacy. At her own home she was a pattern of order, system, and neatness, as well as of hospitality, charity, benevolence, and conscientiousness in the discharge of every duty incumbent upon the mistress of a large household, and scrupulously attentive to every wish expressed by her husband as to the management of his interests in his absence on public affairs. Nothing escaped her watchful yet kindly eye, either within or without the mansion. She loved all pure and beautiful things, whether in nature or in art. The grounds within the curtilage were tastefully arranged in lawns and gardens, and under her immediate inspection were kept carefully adorned with shade trees, and flowering shrubs, and odoriferous plants, and trailing vines, so that in the spring, summer, and fall the airs around were literally loaded with sweets. The kitchen-garden and fruit-orchards were always extensively cultivated. The dairy and laundry were sedulously supervised, and in all directions poultry and fowls of almost every kind most prized for the table, were to be seen in flocks. She preferred that her servant-women should be held to these milder employments, and to spinning and weaving, knitting and sewing, rather than being assigned to the more onerous tasks of the field upon the plantation. Thus, under her superintendence, not only were all the negro field-hands and negro children comfortably provided with clothing of home manufacture and make, as well as ministered to with care and supplied with all necessary medical attendance when sick, but, at the same time, the members of the immediate household had their wants, in these respects, for the most part bountifully met; while the rarest and most beautiful toilet fabrics, and counterpanes, and coverlets, such as are not now to be had at any price, were produced by her handmaids, assisted by those of the neighborhood inheriting the art. Beyond all question, and without regard to the portion she brought with her after marriage, as the gift of her father, which was by no means relatively inconsiderable, she maintained by her active economy the pecuniary independence of her husband under his continued public employments, in an age of public virtue, when the representatives of the people, as well as those of the States, received but slight remuneration for their services, and when, in all probability, he would have been otherwise compelled to have withdrawn from the public councils, and to have relinquished the career of ambition in view of his family necessities and requirements.