*p1751 02 12 dl Gil Blas. ^As17510202^, but <i>Prologue</i>-; <i>Epilogue</i>-.*c1751 02 12 dl Benefit for ye Author (no more Noise) (Cross). Tickets as of 5 Feb. Tickets deliver'd out for the third and sixth Nights will be taken. Receipts: #140 ($Cross=). <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, Feb. 1751, pp. 77-78, concerning <i>Gil Blas</i>: To animadvert upon a piece which is almost universally condemned is unneccessary, and to defend this is impossible. There is not one elegant expression or moral sentiment in the dialogue; nor indeed one character in the drama, from which either could be expected. It is however, to be wished that the Town, which opposed this play with so much zeal, would exclude from the theatre every other in which there is not more merit; for partiality and prejudice will be suspected in the treatment of new plays, while such pieces as the <i>London Cuckolds</i>, and the <i>City Wives Confederacy</i>, are suffered to waste time and debauch the morals of society....Upon the whole the Author appears to have intended rather entertainment than instruction, and to have disgusted the Pit by adapting his comedy to the taste of the Galleries....Perhaps the ill success of this comedy is chiefly the effect of the author's having so widely mistaken the character of <i>Gil Blas</i> whom he has degraded from a man of sense, discernment, true humor, and great knowledge of mankind...to an impertinent silly, conceited coxcomb, a mere <i>Lying Valet</i>, with all the affectation of a Fop, and all the insolence of a coward. [$Thomas Gray= wrote to $Horace Walpole= 3 March 1751, "<i>Gil Blas</i> is the <i>Lying Valet</i> in five acts. The fine lady has half-a-dozen good lines dispersed in it."]