When Reynolds went to Paris in 1826, artists there were astonished at his paintings and the effects that he produced. Sixdeniers and Maile studied with him, and several plates bear their combined names; unfortunately both these engravers, excellent as they were as mezzotinters, chiefly engraved after painters whose productions partook of a frivolous and somewhat free character. Reynolds, however, left more permanent marks of his stay in the French capital by executing there the large plates of Géricault's "Wreck of the Medusa," Horace Vernet's "Mazeppa," and the masterly representations of Charlet's characteristic types, the "Village Barber" and the "Rag Picker." In the last two the technical handling is so free that it would almost seem as if the scraper had been used with the same facility as chalk on paper. In reference to this there is a story extant that Reynolds once scraped a large whole-length portrait in a day and a night; the story is true, but it is also true that it is one of his worst plates. Shortly before his death Reynolds was greatly struck with Constable's picture of "The Lock," and resolved to engrave it at his own cost; writing to Constable on the arrival of the picture, he says:--"I have been before your picture for the last hour. It is no doubt the best of your works true to nature, seen and arranged with a professor's taste and judgment. The execution shows in every part a hand of experience; masterly without rudeness, and complete without littleness; the colouring is sweet, fresh, and healthy; bright not gaudy, but deep and clear. Take it for all in all, since the days of Gainsborough and Wilson no landscape has been painted with so much truth and originality, so much art, so little artifice." But he did not live to fulfil his intention, for while still full of hope and high purpose for the future, Reynolds was suddenly stricken with paralysis, and died at his house in Bayswater in the year 1835. This sudden ending was the cause of his son--likewise named Samuel William--forsaking painting to finish some of his father's plates, and ultimately continuing with success the practice of mezzotint on his own account. Reynolds' daughter Elizabeth, who married the stipple engraver William Walker--though chiefly known by her miniatures and other paintings--also engraved in early life.[64] Although there are no authentic records of the pedigree, S. W. Reynolds always asserted his collateral relationship to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and his son often mentioned that his father, when quite a youth, called on Sir Joshua, who, during the conversation that ensued, remarked to Reynolds, "Then you are my cousin."