The fifth chapter ( ‘The Moral Muse ‘) examines comedy at a time when audiences were especially interested in plays that promoted social reform. It focuses on Richard Cumberland ‘s popular comedy The Jew, a play that Cumberland wrote with the goal of eradicating anti-Semitism from England. The play counters Shakespeare ‘s Shylock, a character played as a villain during the eighteenth century, with Sheva, a benevolent Jew, who gives away his savings to the deserving poor, even those who taunt him. Audiences in Britain and the United States applauded the play with rapture – and applauded themselves for their own moral sympathies. While the play ‘s lofty goals were never realized, its representation of a compassionate Jew did prompt more sympathetic portrayals of Shylock from the nineteenth century onwards.